FairUse 2.6 is out

[UMP]

BTW, FU now has its homepage (I know it's poorly designed, but I'm definitly not a good web designer).

http://www.fairusewizard.com

See the history (http://www.fairusewizard.com/lang_en/history.html) for full change log.

ump


edit by Wilbert & foxyshadis:
version 2.6 is available!

instructions:
Don't forget to install the Light Edition version first (it has the 700 MB restriction). (Older full version: Overwrite FU.exe with this one: FairUse 2.5 (http://www.4shared.com/file/2452310/5e52a4fb/fu25.html))
FairUse 2.6 - src (http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip) (of LE version)

[RathO]

Hey UMP, i saw the screenshots from your website, reminds me tha good old days! And dont worry about the website design, since its pretty the same as the original one.

I saw multiple thread announcing new version, should you stick to one thread? (just askin...) :p

Keep up the good work!

Regards dude!

[Ookami]

Hello.

Thanks for your work.

Are you still using fu2k's algorithm that aims to model how the human eye perceives image distortion or has it been thrown out completly?

BTW, as for your resizer stuff, IIRC, mpeg2avi from PX3 is quite optimized and DVDx too, maybe there you can find some optimized resizing routines?!

Cheers,

Mijo.

[UMP]

Hi,

I'll have a look at these when I'm back from holidays, in a few days.

Thanks,

ump

[int 21h]

Originally posted by Ookami
...Are you still using fu2k's algorithm that aims to model how the human eye perceives image distortion or has it been thrown out completly?...


This only applied to how DivX 3 was used in cross-cutting AFAIK.

[Ookami]

Originally posted by int 21h
This only applied to how DivX 3 was used in cross-cutting AFAIK.

Thanks for your answer.

Hmmm... Couldn't it be used, just like in the original version, just now with Xvid instead of Divx 3.11? I've tried FU Xvid with one clip and I think (didn't had the time to test it), that FairUse would make a better looking clip with the Divx3 cross-cutting multiple encoding feature.

Somehow, I've always found this feature the most interesting, if I would be a programmer I would surely fiddle with FairUse, altough in the ideal case the codec should make this job (n-pass etc.).

BTW, still playing the Star Wars online game?

Cheers,

Mijo.

[int 21h]

Still playing occassionally ;)

I did look into the resize stuff of FU, but unfortunately, I don't have a deep enough background involving the code and manipulating the video itself to know how to adapt another program's resizer to FU.

The cross-cutting stuff was made because DivX 3 didn't have the facilities to provide the proper quality control. However, it is most definitely the codec's responsibility to provide this.

[UMP]

fu2k's algorithm was used to determine image difference for use with the crosscutter, and has been removed.

Using FU with XVID and cross-cutting would be very slow, since for the crosscutter to be effective it would need at least 3 or 4 encodings. IMHO, using 2-pass XVID is faster and should give optimal bitrate repartition.

ump

[UMP]

Here is a minor update bringing DivX 5.1 support.

http://fairuse.free.fr

[mikegun]

hi,

great to see that FU is back. I used this fantastic tool from the beginning and forgot about it since having a dvd burner.
now that mpeg4 devices are bginning to do what they are supposed to
I'm thinking of doing mpeg4 again.
It's sad that you have t post in the general forum, should have sort of his own ...

regards,

mikegun

[mx3001]

I totally agree with mikegun. Great that FU is under development again, thanks.
I wonder why Doom9 never mentioned it in his news, even FU had it's own forum those days and afaik Doom9 is looking for encoding tools with easy GUI: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50339

[UMP]

Was just wondering what feature people would like to see in the next FU release ? This post doesn't mean every request will be implemented, but I'd like to know...

Thanks,

ump

[mikegun]

hi ump,

ok, here we go.
there is one feature I'd like to have: encode closed captions into the video (sorry for my poor english, I hope you understand what I mean).

I can not encode to 720 resolution. at least I haven't seen this possibilty so far. is this true ?

apart from this FU is perfect for me.

regards,

mikegun

[Zhnujm]

AVI/AVS source would be nice.

[UMP]

Originally posted by mikegun

encode closed captions into the video.

I can not encode to 720 resolution.

Does "closed captions" mean subtitles ? If so, FU can do it in the "select range" dialog : http://fairuse.free.fr/images/index.3.jpg

About encoding at 720, you should choose the max resolution in the "resize screen" : http://fairuse.free.fr/images/index.4.jpg

Please note you might need to uncheck the "show only preferred resolution" checkbox.

ump

[UMP]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
AVI/AVS source would be nice.

What would such an option be useful for ?

[mikegun]

Originally posted by UMP
Does "closed captions" mean subtitles ? If so, FU can do it in the "select range" dialog : http://fairuse.free.fr/images/index.3.jpg

About encoding at 720, you should choose the max resolution in the "resize screen" : http://fairuse.free.fr/images/index.4.jpg

Please note you might need to uncheck the "show only preferred resolution" checkbox.

ump

closed captions are sort of subtitles. they are only displayed if you have a CC decoder (built in in most us tv-sets).
they are afaik only on rc1 dvds. you can't select them like you would
select subtitles (via dvd-player remote control). I think I already tried one of these dvds and I couldn't select them like you described.
but I'll check this again. maybe I made a mistake ...

regards,

mikegun

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by UMP
What would such an option be useful for ?

With supporting Avisynth you would open it to every possible type of Source file.
Especially my DVB captures... :D

[UMP]

Well, I understand better :D

Anyway, for what I understand of the FU internal architecture, this would not be an easy thing to do, so I think GK would be a better way to transcode DVB captures.

ump

[UMP]

Originally posted by int 21h
I did look into the resize stuff of FU, but unfortunately, I don't have a deep enough background involving the code and manipulating the video itself to know how to adapt another program's resizer to FU.

As far as I understand the resizing code, one frame is splitted into 3 planes (1 luma and 2 chroma) per field. Before resizing, each plane is reconstructed from its two fields (only if needed), then a filter (?) that was computed during initialization is applied to the frame in :

void ResizePlane::_ResizeX(const unsigned char *src, unsigned char *dst)

and

void ResizePlane::_ResizeY(const unsigned char *src, unsigned srcStep, unsigned char *dst, unsigned dstStep)


I found some MMX code in the VDub sources that looks somewhat similar :

long resize_table_row_MMX(Pixel *out, Pixel *in, int *filter, int filter_width, PixDim w, long accum, long frac)

and

long resize_table_col_MMX(Pixel *out, Pixel **in_table, int *filter, int filter_width, PixDim w, long frac)

and I'm trying to figure out how provide the right params to this. Not that easy since I don't know assembly :(

ump

[mikegun]

hi ump,

if there is a 4:3 and a 16:9 version on the dvd, FU shows both chains but doesn't show which one is the anamorphic one.

regards,

mikegun

[mikegun]

again: question about the auto add feature for pass/bitrate.

when I use auto add, Fu adds 2 passes, both with same bitrate.
does this produce 2 identical videos and render the 2nd pass useless ?
would you suggest to use a bitrate above and below the average like
1800 and 1200 when 1500 is average ?

regards,

mikegun

[UMP]

The auto add feature is useful for two-pass encoding only. It will add one first-pass and one n-th pass encoding.

The cross-cutter is not enabled anymore, so you can't use it with two one pass encodings.

FU does the first pass and transcodes the audio. After audio transcoding, the second pass bitrate is adjusted to better fit the final size, and finally the video and audio file(s) is(are) muxed.

ump

EDIT : corrected the last sentence cos' it had no sense.

[mikegun]

hi ump,

thank you for the explanation and for the update :-)

regards,

mikegun

[UMP]

FU 0.32.8 is a minor update, to hopefully bring almost perfect target size matching, especially with very long movies.

ump

[pacohaas]

Could you make it so the Constant Quality modes of the codecs are easily usable? FU2K started something like this with the Diff Tracking encodes. It would just be nice to have the FU interface to get everything ready to go for the new codecs.

[UMP]

You can simply set the 1st pass encoding params to constant quality, and manualy add only one encoding.

Is that what you're asking for or did I misunderstood the question ?

ump

[pacohaas]

yeah, that's it, but the encoding will still say that it's 750kbps or whatever, I know it works, but maybe something that lets you know for sure that it's working the way you want it to.

[UMP]

Ok, I think I got the point. I'll have a look at it.

ump

[GizmoDerMokwai]

Hi, i've got a little problem with the newest FU version. i'm using win2k sp4 and fu keeps freezing after frist xvid pass and audio transcoding. i've tried it several times. also fu seems slower to me then vdub/ndub or vdubmod...

[int 21h]

It certainly is slower for several reasons.. mostly because much of the program is written in C++, while many of VirtualDub's filters are written in optimized ASM.

[UMP]

Another point might be that FU does apply several filters on each image.

I'm currently investigating the freezing-after-the-first-pass problem. BTW, if someone has any clue about it...

[UMP]

To the concerned FU users : the "No DVD player found on your system" bug has been identified and is corrected in the next coming-soon release. :cool:

The "freeze after the first pass" bug will hopefully be too in a very near future.

ump

[mikegun]

sounds good, thanks for your work :-)

[UMP]

FU 0.32.9 is mainly a maintenance release, to correct two major issues : the "drive not found" problem and the "freeze after 1st XviD pass" symptom

[zeronegative]

I'd also like to use a mounted image as source. My daemon-drive is not recognized, only the two 'real' DVD-drives are shown.

[wertherman]

Never tested any previous versions, but the latest 0.32.9 version that supposedly has "No DVD drive found" fixed, produces the error still...

This is with one dvd drive in the system.

Additional:

Managed to get it to work by telling Daemon Tools to emulate one device instead of zero, after doing that it correctly identified my real dvd rom drive (and only my real dvd rom drive). So the actual bug is that if daemon tools number of drives is set to zero, then it can't find any real dvd drives.

[UMP]

The former "bug" was that the adaptec ASPI drivers did not "see" any SCSI adapters on some systems for an unknown reason. FU 0.32.9 solves this issue by trying to use WinNT/2K/XP internal SCSI interface first, and tries ASPI only if necessary.

In the present case, I think the SCSI interface is working, but FU fails to identify the DVD drives under certain conditions. I'll have a look at this tonight.

Thanks for your feedback and the very interesting additional info,

ump

[spectra]

good to see fu back in town - will try it tonight

[UMP]

zeronegative, wertherman,

the test version below should work with real DVD drives when daemon tools installed and having some drives configured, but I have not tried to "rip" from a DVD image.

http://xplaya2.free.fr/fu_test.zip

It would be nice if you could give it a try and give me some feedback :)

ump

[wertherman]

Now it complains it doesn't have an ASPI layer installed... I can install an ASPI layer if you like.....

[UMP]

:eek:

I forgot to remove some debug code that would force ASPI use.

Please try again with this one : http://xplaya2.free.fr/fu_test2.zip

ump

[wertherman]

Works fine now.

[spectra]

well the "shut down computer" feature doesn't work on my w98se with 0.32.9. perhaps someone else can try this, perhaps it's just my system.

and i have a question on the enqueuing feature: is it possible to create a kind of batch to process all queued sessions, or is it just that these session are defered and you have to start them all on their own one by one ???

[UMP]

IIRW, you should see two buttons on the sessions screen, labeled "Process selected sessions" and "Process all sessions". To use the first one, you should select the desired "Ready" sessions.

The shutdown feature on current releases (including 0.32.10) won't work on Win98 systems. This bug will be fixed in the next release.

ump

[dragongodz]

Ump, if you get the DVDx source code look in the "mpeg_encodeDlg.cpp" file for the "Power off the computer" section. it has OS detection and correct methods for shutting down windows 98/me and 2000/xp.

should save you some time. :)

[spectra]

Originally posted by UMP
IIRW, you should see two buttons on the sessions screen, labeled "Process selected sessions" and "Process all sessions". To use the first one, you should select the desired "Ready" sessions.

The shutdown feature on current releases (including 0.32.10) won't work on Win98 systems. This bug will be fixed in the next release.

ump

Thanks for the quick response.

[UMP]

Originally posted by dragongodz
Ump, if you get the DVDx source code look in the "mpeg_encodeDlg.cpp" file for the "Power off the computer" section. it has OS detection and correct methods for shutting down windows 98/me and 2000/xp.

should save you some time. :)

Thank you,

I had the necessary code, I just forgot that there are people out there still using Win9x based systems :D

ump

[UMP]

> how does interlacing detection work in FU ?

fu2k would give a far better answer to this question, but it seems to me that FU works by looking at the framerate and the interlacing (and maybe the fields flags, but I'm not sure about this).

29.97 fps is basically considered as IVTCed stream, and frames will be deIVTCed (don't flame me if I use the wrong terms) to become 23.976.

Original 23.976 and 25 fps streams will be checked for field interlacing by trying to match adjacent lines from two fields and comparing this to a chosen error ratio to try to deinterlace the video.

If the video if (poorly) encoded as a progressive stream from an interlaced source, then there is no way to realign fields, and the "smart deinterlace" mode will then use only one field and bicubic reisizing to interpolate a full res picture.

Hope this answers the question,

ump

[len0x]

Originally posted by UMP
29.97 fps is basically considered as IVTCed stream, and frames will be deIVTCed (don't flame me if I use the wrong terms) to become 23.976.


Correct term is just IVTCed - coz first it was just telecined, but now has to be inverse telecined. But what if source was 30fps interlaced/progressive? It will still be brought down to 24 fps ?

Originally posted by UMP

Original 23.976 and 25 fps streams will be checked for field interlacing by trying to match adjacent lines from two fields and comparing this to a chosen error ratio to try to deinterlace the video.


I'm interested in this bit. Is it basically trying to detect horisontal artifacts ? Does this happen in YV12 or RGB or YUV2 color space? I know that if only I could do the same thing as the eye does (to see several frames in a row and check if they are interleced) then I can make very good decisions on IVTC/Deinterlace part.

Originally posted by UMP

If the video if (poorly) encoded as a progressive stream from an interlaced source, then there is no way to realign fields, and the "smart deinterlace" mode will then use only one field and bicubic reisizing to interpolate a full res picture.


This is equivalent to SelectEven() in avisynth and called not "smart" but simple/fast deinterlacing :)

I was hoping this bit was much more advanced in FU :cool:
But thanks anyway.

[UMP]

I think you should ask about this to the original author of FU, since he's probably far more aware about these things than I am. After all, I'm only a poor average-skilled developer doing its best to further develop a tool he likes. :)

Anyway, I would be very surprised if FU would bring down 30 fps interlaced/progressive to 24 fps, since the field detection code seems to be a lot smarter than the not-so-smart deinterlacer. :rolleyes:

Regards,

ump

[len0x]

Originally posted by UMP
Anyway, I would be very surprised if FU would bring down 30 fps interlaced/progressive to 24 fps, since the field detection code seems to be a lot smarter than the not-so-smart deinterlacer. :rolleyes:


but you just said in the previous post that FU detects 30fps as telecined source which is always brought down to 24 fps! and only on 24/25 fps source deinterlacing is applied...

[UMP]

Quote from my first answer : fu2k would give a far better answer to this question, but it seems to me that FU works by looking at the framerate and the interlacing (and maybe the fields flags, but I'm not sure about this).

Please note "fu2k would give a far better answer" and "it seems to me". :p

This said, I had a look at the code, and I think I was wrong. here is what ***I think*** is happening in the field mode detection code :

Statistics are calculated with fields comparisons, and field flag counting (Repeat First Field). It makes me think to the "video type = FILM > 95%" determination in DVD2AVI. The result is compared against predefined thresholds to decide what's the source type :

For PAL source (25 fps) :

Native interlaced: The video appears to be interlaced, but the fields could not be re-aligned => BOB deinterlace.

or

Native progressive: The video appears to be progressive.

or

Field align: The video appears to be progressive with occasional orphaned fields.


For NTSC source (not 25 fps) :

Native: The video does not appear to be telecined.

or

Ivtc: The video appears to be telecined.


Hope this helps,

ump

[fu2k]

FairUse detects interlacing in a reconstructed frame by comparing the characteristics of the even and odd fields. If these characteristics are substantially different in the same small local area, then this area is considered interlaced (with varying degrees depending on the difference). These differences are accumulated across the entire frame (using a non-linear method) and if the total metric exceeds a threshold (experimentally determined) then the reconstructed frame is considered to be interlaced. See: "DecodeVideoInterlaced::_Interlaced(...)".

The information as to whether a frame is interlaced or not (and by how much) is used by field aligner to try to put fields back together to form progressive frames.

On PAL sources, the field aligner is limited to dropping the occasional orphan field to maintain alignment. This is often necessary on scene changes when the material has been edited on field based equipment. Of course, some full frames must be duplicated to maintain audio sync. See: "DecodeVideoFieldAlign::_Deinterlace(...)".

On NTSC sources where the user has selected IVTC, the field aligner attempts to dynamically match the IVTC pattern, realign fields and discard the duplicate fields added add by the telecine process. See: "DecodeVideoIvtc::_Deinterlace(...)".

The code that tries to predict whether IVTC is appropriate simply process a subset of the non-RFF parts of the input video using the IVTC algorithm and looks at the interlacing levels of the output. If there is "too much" interlacing then IVTC is not recommended to the user. See: "AutoModeNtsc::Process(...)".

Any interlacing that is present at the end of field realignment is removed by the resizing code, because a low pass filter is applied during this process.

[UMP]

Here is a link to the pre-release of FU 0.33 :

Link removed. Please see http://fairuse.sourceforge.net for latest release

Please not this release has not been fully tested. If some people gives it a try, it would be nice to send me some feedback to : fairuse AT free.fr

Changelog :

- huge improvement in encoding speed
- slightly changed the BeSweet command line to ensure optimal audio gain (solves the "low sound" some people reported)
- the "shutdown after encoding" feature should now work on Win98 systems (I can't test this myself because I haven't used Win98 for ages)
- added the ability to select several IFO chains to cache (no longer limited to one or all chains)
- added external language files so that FairUse can be easily translated (please email me if you want to contribute to translation)
- added project batch processing (use "Defer processing" on the encoding dialog, then "Defer project processing" on the project dialog)

[Boow]

Last time I used this program there was no option to use files already on your hardrive. will newer versions suport this or am i behind on this?

[UMP]

Originally posted by Boow
Last time I used this program there was no option to use files already on your hardrive. will newer versions suport this or am i behind on this?
FU does not take VOB files as input, and it won't. If you need to encode from previously ripped VOB files, you have *lots* of tools out there that will do the job, my personal favorite being GordianKnot.

ump

[spectra]

i'm ripping some DVD extras at the moment and i noticed, that fu ALWAYS uses the filesize as only parameter. even if i add my passes manually and change the bitrate to the bitrate i desire it ignores this manually entered bitrate and takes the bitrate that suites to the filesize that is entered. with normal movie files this is no problem cause you always want to fill 1,2,3 cd sizes, but with extras on dvds, i'd like to have a certain bitrate and do not know how big a 6-minutes extra will be in the end. at the moment i have to try a filesize check if my desired bitrate is reached and try again. is there a possiblity to update the filesize field automatically after i added a pass and manually changed the bitrate to the one i desire.

EDIT: Well ok i found out that with autoadd, you add the streams and then change the filesize and the bitrate in the streams change automatically. so that is good enough for me.

[lar1r]

Nice to see development continued again.

You already answered my first question about allowing FU to use VOB's as input (oh well).

How about adding AAC or OGG as potential audio options? (the output filename would have to be a MP4 or OGM respectively. The seeking in these files is so much better as is the sound quality). If not then the AC3 option will do since I can always use OGGmux or the aacenc/mpeg4creator tool seperately.

Regards

Larry

[UMP]

Ogg was once implemented, and should be back one day or the other, and AAC is on my TODO list, but some issues are still to be fixed before these can be implemented.

Regards
ump

[lar1r]

Ogg was once implemented, and should be back one day or the other, and AAC is on my TODO list, but some issues are still to be fixed before these can be implemented.

Sounds great! Keep up the good work!

I have a question regarding the resolutions FairUse comes up with based on a compression number. Should the setting more or less that's recommended be similar to how Gordian Knot analyzes the compression on a movie file, or how Nero Recode analyzes the mpeg in the vob file??

Thx

Larry

[chilledoutuk]

erm why are you so against being able to slect vobs that have been already ripped?

My encoding maching does not have a dvd rom in it and is not easily accessible surly it would make sense to be able to select a VIDEO_TS folder as the source otherwise many people like myself wont be able to use this tool that looks very nice indeed.

please consider this.

[spectra]

Originally posted by chilledoutuk
erm why are you so against being able to slect vobs that have been already ripped?

My encoding maching does not have a dvd rom in it and is not easily accessible surly it would make sense to be able to select a VIDEO_TS folder as the source otherwise many people like myself wont be able to use this tool that looks very nice indeed.

please consider this.

i had he same problem and i made a workaround by ripping a dvd with "iso mode" with dvd-decrypter. Then u can mount this file with daemon-tools on your fairuse computer. fu detects this mounted image as real dvd.

it's just a weak workaround, cause you always have to rip the complete dvd and also need this space additionally cause fu then produces it's own structure for ripping.

[bilu]

Does FairUse deal with hard-telecined (hardware telecine, without MPEG-2 RFF flags) and hybrid clips (mixed telecine and pure video)?


Bilu

[UMP]

I don't know much about this part but this is from the FAQ :

The IVTC functionality is integrated deeply into FairUse, and was written from scratch. It looks for interlaced frames and repeated fields, and should work properly even when the IVTC offset changes, or the video switches between hard and soft 3:2 pull down.

The same interlace metric is used on PAL titles to realign fields that have been either orphaned after editing or incorrectly interleaved due to mastering errors.

[mordant]

Just a follow up on interlacing. I recently did a HK flick with FairUse 34b where I wanted two CDs but wanted to choose the split point myself, so I used the range selection and did each disk as a sepperate session...what happened in the autodectect part for each half of the same film was different. The first half of the movie IVTC was suggested, the second half Native was suggested. I tried each part a couple of times and the same thing happened. Finally choose IVTC for both and they came out fine.

[bilu]

Originally posted by UMP
I don't know much about this part but this is from the FAQ :

The IVTC functionality is integrated deeply into FairUse, and was written from scratch. It looks for interlaced frames and repeated fields, and should work properly even when the IVTC offset changes, or the video switches between hard and soft 3:2 pull down.

The same interlace metric is used on PAL titles to realign fields that have been either orphaned after editing or incorrectly interleaved due to mastering errors. That's why nobody answered me yet in this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68653

The PAL method seems pretty simple and efficient but the NSTC methods are a bit unclear: hard and soft 3:2 pulldown are both pulldowns, i.e. 30 fps -> 24 fps conversions, the only difference being soft pulldowns being guided by the MPEG-2 RFF flags - you just need to remove the RFF fields.

But NSTC doesn't need pulldown everytime - you can have interlaced 30 fps sources. And sources that have 30 fps interlaced and telecined parts. Does FairUse know how to deal with them?

Bilu

[UMP]

The only person who can answer this did answer to this in the thread you mention.

ump

[Doom9]

But NSTC doesn't need pulldown everytime - you can have interlaced 30 fps sources. And sources that have 30 fps interlaced and telecined parts. Does FairUse know how to deal with them?You might want to give it a shot ;) I know a few easier sources where the film content is enough to force film but the result is not very good (the pulldown pattern changes and you can notice that in the output), but where FU has no problems. You'll want to either look in the source code or try to find the original author to get a more comprehensive answer.
I know the original author once said something to me regarding cut off of high frequency (flickering) but that's all I know and he never went into more detail than that.

[lakedude]

I can't say enough good to convey how much I love FairUse. I've used a bunch of different rippers/converters and IMO FU blows them all away. FU30 is bullet proof and very easy to use. It never fails to produce good results. I wonder if it would be much trouble to make a version the includes the audio and auto shut down features of 34b but that still uses the old divx 3.11 and the cross cutter?

The reason for asking is that I LOVE the idea/functionality of 34b but in practice it is more buggy than 30. Also 3.11 scales and plays better on the ole 450mhz/win 95 machine.

Is there a way to send the developers (fu2k,UMP)a donation? I use FU30 all the time and plan to use the newer version once the bugs ironed out.

Before I start in about the problems let me first say that the changes in 34b are great. It is wonderful to be able to set 34b up and just let it run till its done and have it auto shut down without having to do any extra manual steps.

Ok now the problems: I used 34b with divx5 to encode Once Upon a Time in Mexico with auto add 2 pass and default settings(700MB/128kbps mp3). The avi turned out small at only about 550MB and the quality was very variable. When the love birds are swinging by the chain outside the window the blocking is so bad it looks like the thing they do to whistle blower's faces so you can't see who it is.

I tried again with Xvid and it looks like every other frame is black so the xvid version flickers. I'm trying Xvid again after a reinstall as we speak. I hit a reset or load defauts button and one screen went from having frame 0 and frame 1 to just having frame 0. I suspected that the missing frame 1 was the problem so I'm trying again.

Using the same rip I tried FU30 and divx3.11 and got good results.

My trouble with 34b may just be settings cause I'm not used to using anything other then FU30.

Anyway TIA for any help.

[lakedude]

Update

That frame 0 / 1 thing musta been the problem with the xvid encode. The new one turned out great. If I can get ffdshow to work correctly with the version of media player on my laptop I'm switching from fu30/divx3.11 to FU 34b (or 36)/xvid.

[lakedude]

Ok final update:

My laptop has been goofey for a while now but it would play 3.11 divx fine so why fix what ain't completely broke? Well I just couldn't stand it anymore and reloaded all the software from scratch. Of course it works great now and will play xvid video with hardware acceleration enabled (something it couldn't do before). Now that the Laptop is fixed all my new movies will be fu34/36/xvid. Color me happy:-)

[UMP]

Hi lakedude, and thank you for your feedback :)

In some FU releases I tried to do too much XviD automation, but this thing has been removed from the latest releases. The newest FU 0.36c release fixes several issues, and should be the only release to use (until the next one, at least :p).
Every bug I could reproduce has been squashed from the latest FU release. Some people reported a "key not found" issue, but I've never been able to reproduce this on my system.

BTW, there is no way do donate money to the FairUse project. I won't accept donations because the original author never did so and the more important : I consider my work is nothing compared to his, since I would never have been able to code such software from scratch on my own.

About the undersize issue, you might want to search the forum for the terms "undersize" or "codec saturation".

Cheers,

ump

[lakedude]

Wow thanks for the quick response. You mentioned that development was suspended and I was expecting a much longer response time.

Where would be a good place to discuss bugs/problems?

I downloaded 36c to a win98se machine that had just been reloaded and to an XP machine and both had problems encoding to xvid. In both cases the video flickered like everyother frame was black and the frames that did contain video would get black squares in it. I had the same problem with 34b and xvid on one machine after hitting a load default button but the 34b version worked fine after a reinstall. The 34b version works fine on the laptop with 98se as well.

I did a drive image (ghost) right before installing Fair Use so I could go back to a machine with no versions of Fair Use to test em with clean installs instead of installs over previous versions. I thought that the problem with 36c was the xvid settings so I compaired them line for line with the settings on 34b and made them all the same and 36c still didn't work right as the video still flickered and got black blocks in it.

Could you make older versions available?

Oh BTW the download of 33 asks for a second disk that seems to be missing so the install fails.

[UMP]

About the latest releases

Oh BTW the download of 33 asks for a second disk that seems to be missing so the install fails.
The file is incomplete, I'll upload it again. Thank you for pointing this.

the video still flickered and got black blocks in it
What decoder do you use ? (this can be determined with GSpot)
Please note that FU 0.36+ uses XviD 1.0 RC1. I suspect the problem to be located on the decoding side.

BTW, there is a 0.37 release available.

Cheers,

ump

[lakedude]

Dear UMP thanks again. I Love what you are doing and wish I had the skill to help on the project.

What decoder do you use ?

I used Gspot and it shows:

src type as: 4cc xvid
video path is ffdshow

I used Gspot on both a clip that works fine and the blinky/blocky clip and all the info is the same except the "Stream Type and A/V interleave I/L:"

On the one that works it shows: "1 aud frame (24ms) Split: Yes"
On the one that blinks it shows: "22 vid frames (734ms) Split: Yes"

I could send you a short clip except my copy of Virtual Dub will not open the xvid video so I don't know how to edit the video for lenght.

Anyway it looks like an interleave issue??

[UMP]

I don't think this is an interleaving issue. To be able to open the video with VDub you have to properly install the codec.

Cheers,

ump

[lakedude]

I'm re drive imageing my c: partition right now and I'm gonna install the xvid-rc1 codec. I guess I assumed that fu36c came with it......

ok partition re-made, rc1 installed....VD works!

Ok I uninstalled ffdshow and now that the clip is using the Xvid decoder it looks fine. Picking the xvid option within ffdshow does not work (still flickers).

So far so good cept how come ffdshow don't work?

[UMP]

I'm not sure about this. On my system ffdshow works fine with XviD RC1 as long as there is no more than 1 consecutive BVOP.

You should use the search button, I guess...

Cheers,

ump

[lar1r]

Hey UMP, I just encoded a couple of movies using AC3 and on playback only the right channel was getting sound. It's happened everytime I've tried it.

I've checked my Sound control panel and watched what channels were outputting sound, and sure enough, the right channel was reporting everything fine, the left channel sometimes had very low sound coming from it, but the rest were silent.

I've tried this with AVI and OGM file names.

Does AC3 work for you (even testing with a two channel configuration ie: headphones, are you getting equal sound on the left and right channels when using ac3)?

Also I wanted to thank you big time again. The ability to change XVID settings (for setting zones, and configuring different encode settings), set a start/end frame, encode using OGG are all features that make this program great and standout from the rest.

Regards,
-Larry

[UMP]

Originally posted by lar1r
Hey UMP, I just encoded a couple of movies using AC3 and on playback only the right channel was getting sound. It's happened everytime I've tried it.
AC3 streams are simply extracted to AC3 files then muxed "as is". I fear that the problem is on the playback side somewhere on your system.

You might be able to check this by using DVDDecrypter to extract an AC3 stream to HD and play it back. It is likely that you'll experience the same behaviour.

Does AC3 work for you
AFAIK, AC3 works for all FU users, since as previously said AC3 streams are only demuxed and remuxed to AVI/OGM/MKV without further processing.

Regards,

ump

[Grassy]

Hi UMP,

First like many others here I have to say this is fantastic piece of software, really makes it easy to convert multi-episode discs.

I have only had two issues with this in that a couple of times when I have queued up 4 episodes of the one disc to all be done at the same file size, one of them will be about 20-30MB smalller than the others. The size of the original files are about the same so I don't know why that has happened, the rip has finished OK though, nothing was truncated and the file plays fine so not that big of an issue. I haven't repeated enough of these to give you more info on this but will post back with results after I do these ones again.

The other thing is that when I try to enter a new file comment (like INAM : Title, IART : Artist) I get a error message about "No room to insert", I don't get this error using other encoders so do you know what your program might be doing to cause that ?

Again thanks for creating a wonderful program, well done ! :)

Cheers.

[UMP]

This is likely a codec saturation issue. A search on this forum with the terms "undersize" or "codec saturation" will learn you more about this.

Concerning the other thing, FU currently uses the standard "AVI Mux Filter" to do the multiplexing of audio and video, in a graphedit-like way, so I can't do anything about this ATM. This could be subject to change in a future release.

Cheers,

ump

[lakedude]

How come 38 will not do old saved projects? All the other 3 series from 30 to 37 will take fups from one another.

[lakedude]

UMP

While i'm begging for favors......(are you sure you won't take any money?) An audio setup would be nice as an "expert mode" option. I'd like to make the sound a bit louder.

Many thanks for all you have done. Great program!

[UMP]

0.38 data and project file format changed to support forced subtitles.

The audio is already DRCed and normalised (postgain).

[flloyd]

Would it be possible to make FairUse minimize to the system tray? I would love to have this feature.

[UMP]

Maybe later, but this feature is not at the top of the todo list ;)

Regards,

ump

[lar1r]

Figured out the AC3 problem - it was the filter I originally installed (I think it was from ffdshow).

Once I installed ac3filter0.7 the ac3 sound from FairUse worked properly.

Hey UMP are Zones a feature you are thinking about (that could be set from the preview window)? Not really a big deal since it can manually be done in the codec setup.

[UMP]

If there are exactly TWO zones, the second one will be used for the credits encodings, else FU will ignore these, so you can set them up manually.

Regards,

ump

[chemmajik]

The ability of working off a hd vob directory of the dvd just add a screen to allow skipping dvd decrypt.... or reading dvd... option to decide whethere off hd or dvd...?!

[r6d2]

Originally posted by chemmajik
The ability of working off a hd vob directory of the dvd just add a screen to allow skipping dvd decrypt.... or reading dvd... option to decide whethere off hd or dvd...?! From the FAQ (http://fairuse.free.fr/faq.html):
Q: How can I use FairUse to transcode the VOB files that already are on my hard drive ?

A: You can't. FairUse was not designed to take input from VOB files. :)

[UMP]

I don't understand why this seems to be such a big issue ? One should finish any existing encodings with another tool, then switch to FU for a new backup.

Regards,

ump

[lar1r]

Just noticed that the frame number displayed in the preview window doesn't actually correspond to the right frame all the time.

I was setting ZONES near the start of the file (the Bond intros), and noticed that it was kicking in ~2000 frames too late and ending ~2000 frames later. I used the preview window to find out where to begin and end the zones and inputted these into the codec first and second pass setup options.

My workaround was to encode the first bit and then go back into virtualdub to determine the start and end frame numbers.

The interesting point is that when I set encoding credits near the end of the movie, it turns out fine.

-Larry

[UMP]

If we're talking about a R1 DVD, the frame count might change depending on the framerate if there is any IVTC (29.97 vs 23.976)

[lar1r]

I bet you that was it. They were older Bonds from the 60's which were probably at 29.97. (R1 DVD)

[lakedude]

Hmmm, seems to me like fu30 never had interlacing artifacts but a couple of my newer fu videos do. I think the "Smart Deinterlace" takes care of such things but if you hit "auto" it turns "Smart de" off by default. Is this correct so far?

Anyhow would it be possible to turn "SD" on by default? Or at least not have "auto" turn "sd" off?

[UMP]

SD will be turned on when the source is determined to be interlaced, but could not be reconstructed (ie. if an interlaced source was remastered as progressive without prior deinterlacing).

I did not change anything in the interlacing detection algorithm, so it works the same as it did in FU 0.30.

What you can do is re-enable it when you feel it could help. I think the deinterlacing thresholds would need more tweaking, but it's something I don't fully understand, and any help with the interlacing/IVTC mode determination process would be highly appreciated. :)

Regards,

ump

[fu2k]

The resizer that FairUse used would remove any remaining interlacing artifacts during resizing. So if the resizer has been changed then, this might be why more interlacing is visible.

[UMP]

Well, I see. I replaced the original resizing code with "simple" MMX optimized resizer because resizing was way too slow. Since I don't know much assembly myself, I couldn't convert the existing algorithm.

ump

[lakedude]

fu2k and UMP

I love you guys! Well I love FairUse anyway. Too bad I can't get ya to take a donation. I use FU more than any other program and to me it is worth chargin for.

fu2k you made a wonderful program, ahead of its time, rock solid. bullet proof, almost perfect.

UMP you are finishing what was started in a great way. Your additions are pretty much exacty what FU needed. You do not give yourself enough credit sometimes.

Many Thanks and keep up the good work!

[UMP]

Originally posted by lakedude
Too bad I can't get ya to take a donation.
This might change in the near future ;)

Thank you for your support,

ump

[RathO]

@UMP: FairUse is just getting better and better with its 0.40 version!

1- I was wondering if its possible to add a "Browse" button so we can decide where (on wich hard-disk) the final file will be written?

2- Would be great to be able to create a FairUse project with already unencrypted vob files on our hard-disk.

3- Are you planning to add some options for filters? (now im thinking about Convolution3d and maybe some other usefull filters...)

Keep up the good work! :p

Regards

[UMP]

1. this is not planned ATM

2. you might build an iso image and mount it with daemon-tools

3. the "original resize" mode features built-in filters, but this mode is currently about 2-3 times slower than the MMX version (without filters).

[mikegun]

hi @ all

maybe I missed something but I still do not understand why the thread for this great programm is in the general discussion forum ??

regards,

m.

[RathO]

@UMP:

What are the filters the original resize mode is currently using?
Is it that hard to add a button so the user can decide where to write the final file? :confused:

Thank you for your reply.

Regards

[UMP]

@mikegun : I guess it is because it can encode to both XviD and DivX, so it wouldn't fit in one of the two forums.

@RathO: it wouldn't be _that_ hard, but I don't feel this to be a high priority task.

Regards,

ump

[lakedude]

maybe I missed something but I still do not understand why the thread for this great programm is in the general discussion forum ?? Good question. I think the problem is that FU is too reliable and doesn't generate enough traffic. They explained that they monitored the traffic and FU just don't generate any. Too simple and too reliable. Who ever needs to ask questions? The whole thing is self explanatory.

[mikegun]

Originally posted by lakedude
Good question. I think the problem is that FU is too reliable and doesn't generate enough traffic. They explained that they monitored the traffic and FU just don't generate any. Too simple and too reliable. Who ever needs to ask questions? The whole thing is self explanatory.

hehe, thats a good point.

rgds.

mikegun

[UMP]

Originally posted by lakedude
Good question. I think the problem is that FU is too reliable and doesn't generate enough traffic. They explained that they monitored the traffic and FU just don't generate any. Too simple and too reliable. Who ever needs to ask questions? The whole thing is self explanatory.
Is this a joke or is this serious ?

[RathO]

Too bad, it would be a great option that would push me to use FU over my old classic method. It is hard-disk-killer to process-mux movies on a single hd IMO and i just hate that.

[no offense here]
OK, let's see if the money can bring this option... i'll make a little contribution via Paypal if it gets on soon :p
[/no offense here]

Also, would be great to have more details about what exactly is the "old resize" and what is the "new one".

Can you publish on your website your to-do list if possible?

Keep up the good work UMP!

Regards

[UMP]

Originally posted by RathO
[no offense here]
OK, let's see if the money can bring this option... i'll make a little contribution via Paypal if it gets on soon :p
[/no offense here]
From the FU donation page : "In short, I am not selling user support or new features implementation."

You should only donate if you want to _donate_. :p

Also, would be great to have more details about what exactly is the "old resize" and what is the "new one".
The "original resize" is a bicubic resizer written in C. The "new one" is an MMX-optimized bilinear resizer.

Bilinear resizing is usually considered to be better than bicubic when it comes to shrinking the picture.

Regards,

ump

[ender]

Hi !

Great work, however for us PocketPC & PALM Users it would be GREAT to have a simple "rotate 90°" Option, could you implement that in a next version ??

Thanks for Fair use anyways !!!

Ender

[UMP]

This is already on the TODO list, through it's not my number 1 priority :)

Regards,

ump

[halbacht]

Well guys, I am not sure whether what I am going to describe here belongs to this thread, but I simply don't want to start a new one with my first post in this forum...

Let's go: I have a 16:9 TV, standalone MPEG4 player and an anamorhic (16:9) DVD with a 2,35:1 film.

What I want to do is to make a XVID AVI using FU, but optimized for watching on my TV set, it means it should contain anamorhic frames. Although it would be nice if I there were a SW player that can automatically handle such anamorhic AVIs on the comuter, it's not my primary concern at the moment.

To do such thing with FU is at the moment not possible.

Why? Because FU does not support native output of anamorhic material.

I mean in the FU Wizard resolution screen, you can pick up 'Output Video Size' that are found to be suitable (using FU intern logic) either for 'TV Aspect Ratio' (equals to 59:54 PAL PAR), or not which probably defaults to computer monitor display with 1:1 PAR. For anamorhic DVDs, FU realizes that in both cases you will have to resize, what is exactly what you need when you are going to watch the film on the computer monitor. So the resolutions that one can use for an output video size are limited to those ones which have a resizing included.

But for 16:9 TV sets this simply means the lost of vertical resolution and advantages that anamorhic DVDs bring with.

To be (hopefully) clear, that is the exact sequence of what happens:

- After first steps I cropped the horizontal black bars, and after that I have frames with 704x432 resolution.
- The best output resolution offered by FU in this case is 704x320 (with 'TV Aspect Ratio' set).
- When I choose this resolution, I get 'normal' frames in AVI, BUT (excuse for caps) I loose 112 lines of vertical resolution.
- When I play such material on my TV, I get squieshed picture with DAR ~ 3:1. That's because my TV set in automatic mode have a 'feature' to always stretch the lines to fill in the full screen.
- Well, as a 'workaround' I use a 'zoom' feature of a TV set which stretch the picture vertically so that the final DAR is as the original one (2.35:1), but I know that I have lost about 33% of vertical resolution, and that my favourite film can look much better if played without vertical streching...

I think it would be great if the FU Wizard get one additional 'check box' (or radio box) which allow to set the output video size to resolutions which correspond to native anamorhic build. In practice it should equal (in at least one most ineteresting case) not to do resizing at all, which can only additionally speed up the whole process.

And chances are good that the number of people using stanalones MPEG4 players and 16:9 TVs will increase in future.


One more question for MPU:

Afaik the black-white luminance range for watching on PCs is 0-255, while for TV it is 16-236 or so.
How it is handled in FU at the moment? I mean is the output optimized for PC (analog to Avisynth filter colorYUV with 'levels' parameter set to "TV->PC")?

If it is so it would be great if it can be configurable as well, so when preparing the material targeted for watching on TV the original luminance range stay the same as original...

I have a strange feeling that my XVIDs when looking using standalone player are a little darker then on my PC and I think that maybe can be a reason.



And finally my personal message (MPU, fu2k):

you have done a great job, guys. It was a long way to go, a lot of wonderful people contributed to 'fair use' ideas considerable amount of their time (and lives), and a lot of extraorinary good and
useful products are available at the moment.

But with your product a ripping has become a 'no brainer' as it should be. There are a lot of us that prefer this all-in-one way, always or at least sometimes. That's a way to find time to do something else in our lives far away from computer screens...

just keep on...

[RathO]

@UMP: I have a fullscreen movie, and i'm wondering why the resolution choosed by FU doesn't match the 4:3 AR.

For a 1 cd rip, i always use 512x384 res >> 4:3. (I'd go 640x480 for a 2 cd rip, wich is not the case right now...).
The preferred resolutions that shows FU, 512x384 does not appear, and the preferred res are not 4:3.

Is the problem related with the cropping?
Should we specify to FU the source AR? >> 4:3 or 16:9?

Regards

[UMP]

And chances are good that the number of people using stanalones MPEG4 players and 16:9 TVs will increase in future.
Anamorphic encoding would be very easy to implement, but my fear this would lead to confusion for many users, provided that it seems that the final AR on the display will highly depend on the used devices rather than the encoding settings.
I mean : an anamorphic encoding will display fine on _your_ TV set with _your_ standalone player, but there is no guarantee how the same encoding would display with another hardware (no to speak about PC monitor). I don't like the idea to implement "try and see if it works for you" features in FairUse.

Afaik the black-white luminance range for watching on PCs is 0-255, while for TV it is 16-236 or so.
The luminance range is currently 0-255.

@RathO: FU already knows the source AR. If you're looking only to predefined standard resolutions, you might try with no cropping at all, through this is not recommended.


Regards,

ump

[halbacht]

@UMP:I respect your fear to put inside one all-in-one and easy-to-use tool one such (advanced?) feature. But think again:
I mean : an anamorphic encoding will display fine on _your_ TV set with _your_ standalone player, but there is no guarantee how the same encoding would display with another hardware (no to speak about PC monitor). I don't like the idea to implement "try and see if it works for you" features in FairUse.

First of all, this is a story about ALL 16:9 TV sets and ALL MPEG4 stadalone players... And these people are slowely coming with their needs and desires, look in AGK threads....

It took me some time to understand what's happening and to realize that the picture I get can be much better without (almost) any development effort. At the beginning I had the feeling that something is wrong, but I didn't figured out what. There are a lot of newbies that are using ripping for the same reason as me, but are simply not aware that they easily can get much better results. I mean they are maybe happy with what they get, but they (and me) will be much happier if we get something much better...

As you stated it is very easy to implement :), BUT you don't give it to us :(. So (no offend here) this reminds me on my database admin: I know that something exist, BUT he simply don't give me the right to use it :angry:! Na ja, I don't like him anyhow...

BUT, I like you and your work and respect all what you put inside this program (I am a sw developer as well). I am just telling you:
HEJ, your program can perform MUCH better in one important use case and it is easy to do, so use the chance and do it.
You will be the first to offer such feature in one all-in-one tool.
Don't disappoint me...
To avoid any doubt (for unexperienced users) you need to either:
- make this feature available only in expert mode, or
- use clear statement that the feature is exclusively for 16:9 TV sets

And nothing more, everybode will understand it, even newbies are not sooooo blind :), believe me!

Concerning luminance:
The luminance range is currently 0-255.
Thank you very much for answer, it means the same problem: for watching on TV sets it would be very nice if (ONLY in expert mode) we can adjust the luminance level to be appropriate for watching our XDIVs on TV sets (in this case 16:9 or 4:3 doesn't matter, of course).

thanks for reply,
regards halbacht

[RathO]

What i mean is that with AR 4:3, 512x384 should be available in the preferred res. When FU crops using AutoSet, the AR % of error should be 0%, wich is not the case right now with its ~1.xxx% AR error.

I know its no big deal, but you know...

J'te remercie ;)
Regards

[UMP]

What are the nearest displayed resolutions ?

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by halbacht
...I think it would be great if the FU Wizard get one additional 'check box' (or radio box) which allow to set the output video size to resolutions which correspond to native anamorhic build. In practice it should equal (in at least one most ineteresting case) not to do resizing at all, which can only additionally speed up the whole process....


Thats not exactly true for all players, most i tried do a correction to the vertical axis because of the "square pixel pc" /"non-square pixel tv".
So in your example 704x432 would be to high, a resizing to 704x400 is necessary to get a correct aspect ratio on my 16:9 TV, gknot can calculate that.
But as said that may differ from player to player, my ess based player seems to like 704x432 :rolleyes:
So i think it would be best to allow entering custom values for the resolution.

[UMP]

FU's "TV Aspect ratio" option disables the ITU-R BT.601 aspect ratio calculation just like in GK.

The point here is that if one _does_ crop the picture, then obviously the output res can't be the full 720x... width. How could it be ?

FU produces perfect aspect ratio output, following or not the ITU-R BT.601 standard or not (depending on viewing on PC/TV). Final dot.

Regards,

ump

[halbacht]

@Zhnujm:So in your example 704x432 would be to high, a resizing to 704x400 is necessary to get a correct aspect ratio on my 16:9 TV, gknot can calculate that.
But as said that may differ from player to player, my ess based player seems to like 704x432.
So i think it would be best to allow entering custom values for the resolution.
I mean my original DVD with anamorphic content is designed to be played on 16:9 screen and all equipment in the 'Picture Production Chain == PPC :)' (DVD, player, TV) play together to produce the best possible picture in DVDs native resolution, it means 720x576 (by the way, smart 4:3 TV sets will see a heck and will automatically reduce the vertical resolution in 4:3 ratio, so that you on them as well get the original movie DAR).

After ripping and cropping I see that useful content (while 2.35:1) is coded with in my case, to be absolute precise 702x432 - it may slightely vary from movie to movie. So I know the best would be to do a little horizontal 'letterboxing' in order to bring a whole useful information on the visible part of the screen, let's say 8 additional pixels left and right which finally bring us to 720x432 (and not 704x432), and let the PPC(see above) do the rest, it knows how to do it best...

But even without letterboxing (maybe not for newbies while it requires manual intervention, so they have to know what they are doing and why), I would be ready to sacrifice few pixels in order to use FU because I really love this tool.

But I cannot sacrifice more than 100 pixels of vertical resolution, its simply too much for me...

Anyhow I agree with your proposition to get a freedom to set the desired resolution (in expert mode), that would solve everything.

So let's see what will bring us the next version, I really hope the we can (together) convince UMP...

regards,
halbacht

[UMP]

I'm already half-convinced that full high-res might be an interesting feature, but...

So I know the best would be to do a little horizontal 'letterboxing'
I would tell : don't do any horizontal cropping ! Why crop to add black lines after that ? If you don't use cropping, you'll get the full horizontal width you're aiming. The real issue with that would be that black borders are very bad for compressibility. Anyway, I think much of us can still watch a video while missing 2 or 3 pixels on each side. :)

I agree with your proposition to get a freedom to set the desired resolution (in expert mode), that would solve everything
I fear I don't :p
That would lead to manual (and IMHO useless) AR calculations. There are defined and precise rules for AR calculation, based on :

1. the source size
2. the format (PAL/NTSC)
3. wether the calculation should follow the ITU-R BT.601 standard
4. wether to do anamorphic encoding or shrink to "simple" res

1 and 2 are determined from the source, FU allow the user to decide point 3, and currently forces the user's choice for 4.

The only change that might be seen in a future release would concern point 4. Manual override would be nonsense IMHO.

Regards,

ump

[r6d2]

Originally posted by UMP
The real issue with that would be that black borders are very bad for compressibility.Hi, UMP,

I know this is practically "urban folklore", but have you actually measured this? I have done it several times with MPEG-2 and the impact is completely neglillible. It woud be nice to have somebody else's confirmation.

[UMP]

I haven't tested this myself, I trusted the author of VDub on this one.

[r6d2]

Believe it or not, I had a discussion with len0x on the AutoGK thread, quite similar to the one you are having here.

My idea was to crop keeping the original height, for one, and with anamorphic sources, resizing the width for a perfect "archival level" encode. Keeping the height required to encode small black bars to get mod 16 or mod 32.

len0x's use of AutoCrop sometimes crops too much. About 2%. I haven't really digged into FU cropping, but maybe those 2 or 3 lines you think you are missing are not that few after all. :confused:

I was advocating for anamorphic AVIs too, even further than that, original PAR AVIs, meaning to keep the NTSC/PAL format PAR and resize at playtime. Then I run into de container issue which I found way too cumbersome to provide a respectable player all the data needed to play correctly.

Even though I got some really good results after all with Matroska and Zplayer, I sort of fell back to the "keep it simple, stupid" concept of: 640 width, height corrected to keep DAR, one single quality based pass, average quant 3. :)

But the conceptual idea is still interesting IMHO.

[RathO]

@UMP: I encoded a movie last night and i always get the temp files to be deleted. So all i had this morning is is my final matroska file. But the file is corrupt (its timecode is corrupted) so the whole movie has to get buffered before playing and when i switch language, the movie starts again.... ok, so let's say the final file is unusable...

Is this a common problem?


UMP, i got the solution: just add a button in the expert features so we can skip or not the final step of muxing all the files... this way, we can use other tools to do so, like MKVtoolnix, wich has a great and easy way of tagging the files (languages...)


Regards

[UMP]

@r6d2: I have yet to see FU to do a wrong cropping. If it fails to determine the edges, the user is asked to crop manually (happened once to me). fu2k did a very good job on this part. :)

@RathO: that's the first time I hear about this, don't know what may have happened.

Regards,

ump

[r6d2]

Originally posted by UMP
@r6d2: I have yet to see FU to do a wrong cropping.Maybe I did not make myself clear, sorry. len0x's AutoGK crops correctly, in the sense that it keeps perfect aspect ratio.

But the rounding thing he forces produces too much cropping sometimes, not just the two or three lines you pointed out. So I thought you might have not noticed that and would like to have a closer look.

[UMP]

That was how I understood it :)

[halbacht]

@r6d2 :
I was advocating for anamorphic AVIs too, even further than that, original PAR AVIs, meaning to keep the NTSC/PAL format PAR and resize at playtime
Very pleased to hear your opinion. In a matter of fact that's what I wanted but was afraid to ask for.

Let's see why. The next lines describe the scenario valid ONLY for TV sets. It's not valid for computer screens.

I hope everybody will agree that 720x576 is the best possible DVD resolution, while native. On PAL TV I will always see 576 lines doesn't matter whether they are filled up with a movie, or with black bars. I can't avoid them while I don't want to cut may TV :). The problem is that the movie fill up only a part of this resolution, in my case 702x432. So I decide to cropp in order to help XVID to compress only the part I am interesting in, my 702x432.

Imagine now the tool which will (after XVID has done its honest job) simply return back my (now compressed) 702x432, and insert it inside original 720x576, exactly on the same place it took it out before compressing! The rest will be, as always, filled up with black bars (for 2.35:1 movies, for 1,85:1 they are almost invisible) so that I have again 720x576. But my TV knows very well what to do with this 720x576, and I trust it to do the job to the end...

What does all this mean?

It means FORGET resizing when targeting the rip for TV sets. Just determine the real movie size (haven't notice problems in FU with that), pick out the bare movie, do XVID, but put it back again from where you took it. That's all folks! We have great XVID movie in best possible TV resolution.

For all other non 720x576 resolutions, DVD player have to make some decision how to prepare this non-standard resolution for TV set. And these decisions can be different from model to model. But with 720x576 they all 'think' the same. So 720x576 is a 'no brainer'!

Then I run into de container issue which I found way too cumbersome to provide a respectable player all the data needed to play correctly.
When targeting computers, we have a different story. You have to handle anamorphism. It make also sense to resize and get more room for other useful programs, what you can't do on TV. So we have to face with the fact that TVs and computers are still very different and other logic have to be applied when preparing rips for them. The programs which understand it and optimally support both cases will simply have more acceptance.

I am trying to move FU in that direction. The chances are, as I realized, better then before.

regards,
halbacht

[RathO]

RathO: What i mean is that with AR 4:3, 512x384 should be available in the preferred res. When FU crops using AutoSet, the AR % of error should be 0%, wich is not the case right now with its ~1.xxx% AR error.

UMP: What are the nearest displayed resolutions ?The nearest is 512x368 :confused:

Regards

[Wilbert]

On PAL TV I will always see 576 lines doesn't matter whether they are filled up with a movie, or with black bars.
Not quite true. There's also vertical overscan. But, that's not very relevant in this discussion.

For all other non 720x576 resolutions, DVD player have to make some decision how to prepare this non-standard resolution for TV set.
Again false. There are other valid dvd resolutions, like 704x576 or 352x576. But, that's not very relevant in this discussion.


Imagine now the tool which will (after XVID has done its honest job) simply return back my (now compressed) 702x432, and insert it inside original 720x576, exactly on the same place it took it out before compressing! The rest will be, as always, filled up with black bars (for 2.35:1 movies, for 1,85:1 they are almost invisible) so that I have again 720x576. But my TV knows very well what to do with this 720x576, and I trust it to do the job to the end...

What does all this mean?
That you have to use GKnot, if you want to do this :)

However, I doubt whether this is necessary. During playback on your pc, black borders are added to fill it to 4:3. Precisely what you need for tv. Besides that, it depends on how your videocard is doing the digital to analogue conversion. I can't image that the horizontal size (of the XviD clip) is of any relevance (in the sense that you will see much difference between 768, 720, or 704). I'm not sure what happens with the vertical size though.

[UMP]

Originally posted by Wilbert "Imagine now the tool which will (after XVID has done its honest job) simply return back my (now compressed) 702x432, and insert it inside original 720x576, exactly on the same place it took it out before compressing!"

That you have to use GKnot, if you want to do this :)
I fear that - GKnot or not GKnot - this does not make any sense...

What does "insert (compressed) 702x432 inside 720x576" mean ?

Regards,

ump

[Wilbert]

I took it to mean: add black borders to get 720x576 before compression. Maybe he meant after the compression, but that's not possible.

[UMP]

I think so, then he simply should do no cropping at all :)

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by UMP
...That would lead to manual (and IMHO useless) AR calculations. There are defined and precise rules for AR calculation, based on :...


That would be true if all players/containers would support AR settings, unless this is done theres no general rule for encoding anamorphic resolutions.
As pc user i would prefer no resizing at all, as standalone user i would prefer a "square pixel" correction.
So entering custom values is just the easiest solution.

[UMP]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
As pc user i would prefer no resizing at all, as standalone user i would prefer a "square pixel" correction.
This is the matter of a checkbox. I still don't like the idea to enter custom values.

[halbacht]

@Willbert:
Welcome in discussion, and thank you for corrections.

Only as reminder: I have a 16:9 Samsung TV, Yamada 6000 MPEG4 standalone player (ESS Vibratto chip set) configured for 16:9 output and anamorphic 2,35:1 DVD and I want the best possible picture _on_the_TV_using_standalone_MPEG4_player using FU. I don't care too much for MBytes...

I am already using GK to achieve the results I am writing about (thanks anyhow) but I want to switch to FU while I find it very good and simple to use. I want to convince UMP to include support for resolution(s) which is(are) most suitable for anamorphic output because it's trivial, reduce overall time (no resizing) and give marvellous results on my equipment.

But my intention is NOT to order a FU solution only _for_my_player_, much more to help finding a solution fora most (ideally all) such machines. Because I am pretty sure that all such players MUST treat 720x576 resolution on the same way, I suggested this resolution in my last mail as a possible general solution. All other resolutions can be potentially misinterpreted by standalone players, although it is not very likely. To find out how my equipment treat such cases I have just finished a little test and I want to report the results. I have used FU to produce 5 different AVI clips based on one 'A man apart' 2 minute chapter in 720x432 after clipping (while 2,35:1) with the following output resolutions (all offered with TV aspect ratio set):704x320,
640x288,
576x288,
496x224,
400x176The results are the following: for ALL (!) resolutions I have got IDENTICAL (and wrong) movie DAR on my TV , approximatelly 3:1. Image is ALWAYS the same size, with the horizontal over the whole screen. It means my MPEG4 player always STRETCH the image so that it fills the whole TV horizontal, and then scale the vertical so to maintain the assumed DAR. The problem is that it beleives that the picture is anamorphic (its a default configuration when it is connected to 16:9 TV), and accordingly uses 16:9 PAL PAR by stretching a horizontal, and not 4:3 which use FU in its intern resizing calculations. I mean for 4:3 TVs FU is perfect, but 16:9 sets can produce much better image if they get anamorphic files. So it means I have distorted picture with much wider horizontal black bars that they should be.

I can handle this situation on two ways: 1. I can use 4:3 mode on my TV set, BUT then I additional vertical black bars, horizontal black bars stay the same size. DAR is now correct (2,35:1), but the picture is so small that I even don't think using this mode.

2. I can use 'zoom' mode on my TV. In this case TV scales once more the vertical dimension, again by 4:3, while the horizontal dimension stays the same. In this case movie DAR is again OK - 2.35:1, the picture fills ALL the screen, BUT the problem is that the vertical is got BY SCALING of 320 lines of FU output resolution to 432 (which is now on the screen), and NOT by using ORIGINAL 432, what is possible if FU simple include the option to not resize the original image.. but I use this mode sometimes...
Maybe some more tests with different MPEG4 players and different 16:9 TVs should be made, but who can organize that? I have this equipment and nothing else.

I spend too much time with GK to do the rips. For DVDs I don't use filters, I don't need resizing, I don't like to crop manually, and to use a bunch of other tools to do the job. It works of course, but that's why I prefer FU - simple to use, all-in-one BUT the same quality. Bravo!

just one thing more please: anamorphic output...

regards,
halbacht

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by UMP
This is the matter of a checkbox. I still don't like the idea to enter custom values.

Well, if you implement both modes that will be no problem :)


Originally posted by halbacht
Because I am pretty sure that all such players MUST treat 720x576 resolution on the same way, I suggested this resolution in my last mail as a possible general solution. All other resolutions can be potentially misinterpreted by standalone players, although it is not very likely.

No, 720x576 is not a good idea if you use a player with the mediatek/sigma players that i tried as the picture will NOT be correct with such a resolution. Everything less than 1.33:1 will not play correctly.

[UMP]

The standalone players world is a jungle, where the digital world's rules we're used to does not apply.

Each manufacturer's player has it's own behaviour it seems...

[Zhnujm]

Blame ESS for creating a chipset that cannot do a proper resizing.
Others work the same as a PC, play a 720x576 avi file with your PC and you will see that it does not fill the screen but has black borders left+right because its not 4:3.

[Wolfman]

I have tested this software again ..and it def appears improved.. especially in relation to TV aspect ratio(standalone playback).. my gripe is that you can't have vobs as input.. I even re-authored a 15min test DVd (mini-dvd) on cdr, and it would'nt accept it (no encryption, region perhaps?). It would not accept the same dvd mounted as an image in daemon tools. Running every test off a real DVD is a very hardware -intensive process.
Any better suggestions for testing?
Also which works better (to you) on ESS player, the internal divx/xvid or external divx/xvid.
Does it look like ESS will sort out their aspect ratio problems??
if you set a PC player software to full screen it will fill the screen with no black borders left or right!?

Tv aspect ratio would be one thing that would make me use this program
Also on another point how good is the error handling in fairuse? I have a dvd which plays fine but when fair use tries to read it gets to about 3/4 thru then fails.. it just seems to sit there nearly locking machine but getting no further thru?? I then have to reboot to exit the program

[UMP]

my gripe is that you can't have vobs as input..
FairUse is a DVD backup tool. Not a VOB-on-HD conversion tool. You should try AutoGK.

I even re-authored a 15min test DVd (mini-dvd) on cdr, and it would'nt accept it (no encryption, region perhaps?).
I don't have made any testing on such material.

Any better suggestions for testing?
Do your testing with a real DVD, using a trailer. :)

Also which works better (to you) on ESS player, the internal divx/xvid or external divx/xvid.
The idea behing "integrated" codecs is that FU comes with default settings that match the codec version. "Internal" codecs with default settings are known to work fine on ESS chipsets.

if you set a PC player software to full screen it will fill the screen with no black borders left or right!?
This depends on you. If you use the black borders crop feature you won't have black borders... :D

Also on another point how good is the error handling in fairuse?
Should be good enough. Which version are we talking about here ?

[Wolfman]

which codec looks better, on playback ((on standalone) on 4:3 tv) for the same filsize i should have said. latest version of fu4.0. I do use autogk, but it lacks the Tv aspect ratio, otherwise I would use it everytime. I have experimented with GK but I havent figured out the necessary adjustments to the aspect ratio, in the final step.
help anyone??
problem dvd is cabaret..freebie from newspaper

[UMP]

Originally posted by Wolfman
I do use autogk, but it lacks the Tv aspect ratio, otherwise I would use it everytime.
I think AutoGK only encodes to the so-called TV AR. Nothing bad there, it simply means that it does not follow ITU-R BT.601 specs, which is GordianKnot's default.

May I ask what does make you prefer AutoGK (len0x, no offense here ;)) ?

Regards,

ump

[Zhnujm]

Small feature request:
Is it possible to add the ability to do only audio encodings ?
Maybe if someone forget to add the audio or select the wrong language... :rolleyes:

[RathO]

Other small feature request:
Please add an option so the final file doesn't get muxed. This way, we can use the program we prefer to mux and tag the audio files the way we want, since FU doesn't.

In my case, i prefer using MKVtoolnix to tag my input files.

Regards

[Wolfman]

Reasons for preferring autogk:
Main thing is that I can put my vobs on disk and run completely on the Pc. It has a specific install for ess players . Its is also pretty fast. I think there is a certain amount of control re audio (2 tracks available) and the audio quality (AC3 possible) also the interface (to my eyes) is more intuitive. Plus I can tell, to a certain degree what is going on under the hood. multiple encodes are faster and easier to do. (I often make mistakes, or dislike the quality and have to redo). Also subtitles are available. I have just experimented with full GK and the quality was superb..but god its slooow 4.5fps. Not that your program is bad, its just nice to have different options especially for widescreen films (2.35-1).
reasons for not liking it : aspect ratio and aspect ratio and oh yes aspect ratio (on standalone playback).

[UMP]

@Zhnujm : maybe at a later time

@RathO : we already discussed about this

@Wolfman : maybe you should give FU a deeper look ;)

FU's "indexing" copies the data to your HD before processing (I know that's not VOB output, and this is not likely to change), allows for 2 audio tracks, has AC3 audio support, and should produce AVI files that are 100% compatible with ESS-based standalone players (if not, please let me know).

Regards,

ump

[RathO]

@UMP: I didn't re-ask just for fun... you never say anything to my "bad 4:3 AR: 512x368 instead of 512x384" or my "do not mux expert option" except: -"that's the first time I hear about this, don't know what may have happened."

Whatever i guess?

Hum...

[UMP]

About bad 4/3 aspect ratio : don't crop at all, and you should get what you want I think.

EDIT :

About the feature requests :

I'm currently having hard times trying to implement a _fast_ HQ resize filter, trying to solve bugs that make FU hang during encoding, and so on. Adding an option to _not_ mux the final movie is not my current priority, but if you (don't know if you're a developer yourself) or anyone else implements the feature, I'll be happy to merge it to the official source code.

[Wolfman]

Ahh i didnt realise .. however I have merely experimented with some trailers and I think it only had ac3 2.0 sound...but I still like the control (and tweaking audio size vs videosize) that Autogk can do. Will check it out more thoroughly.

[therealjoeblow]

Originally posted by UMP


May I ask what does make you prefer AutoGK (len0x, no offense here ;)) ?

Regards,

ump


...no offense, ump, but with my (few) tests, in my opinion (we're all entitled, aren't we?) it's quality - AutoGK produces *significantly* better looking encodes at the same resulution and target file sizes. I did a copule of movies in XviD and DivX, and in all cases, the AutoGK encodes looked sharper with much less pixellation and with better color saturation. The FU encodes all looked somewhat blurrier, with more noise and more washed out colors (less vibrant).

[Wolfman]

I agree with realjoeblow (on very limited testing).:rolleyes:
too wimpy too say it

[halbacht]

I did a copule of movies in XviD and DivX, and in all cases, the AutoGK encodes looked sharper with much less pixellation and with better color saturation.

What does it mean now? I think, if you are using no postprocessing (filters), then the quality is (when we neglect resizing which I anyhow don't need) up to the tuning of XVID/DIVX settings (and maybe up to the version), and you are free to adjust them as you want.

So it should be not up to the FU ore AGK, or I am wrong?

[UMP]

The point is AutoGK uses AviSynth with a bicubic or Lanczos resize filter and maybe luma correction, while FU currently uses internal routines and a simple bilinear resizer, which gives better compressibility, but produces a somewhat blurred picture.

I'm currently working on implementing a better resizer, but I'm not an assembly/MMX expert, so this might take some time.

Anyway, thank you for the honest answers, that's all I was asking for :)

Regards,

ump

[halbacht]

@UMP:
Let's put it this way:

It is undoubtedly a drawback but it can be seen also as an additional argument for an 'no resize' option I am advocating for, as a 'killer' feature for a whole class of equipment and users waiting for anamorphic output (no fear I have no intention to start the discussion again :thanks: ).

regards,
halbacht

[UMP]

Hello everyone, after reading your remarks, I had to take some drastic measures to correct the output quality of FU. The next release will have two resizing modes :

A better bilinear resize (for 1 CD backups)
A Lanczos resizer (IMHO, this one should be reserved to 2 CD backups)

I took some screenshots from an anime. Should do the same with a movie, but I fear I'm too lazy :)

1. My reference picture (Lanczos resize, no further processing) :
http://fairuse.free.fr/images/ken/ken-nolimiter.jpg

2. the same with TV scale colors correction :
http://fairuse.free.fr/images/ken/ken-limiter.jpg

3. the first with an additional Undot filter :
http://fairuse.free.fr/images/ken/ken-undot.jpg

4. for comparing purpose, the previous FU resizer version :
http://fairuse.free.fr/images/ken/ken-oldresizer.jpg

I'd like to have some opinions about these. I don't know if the next FU release should do Undot, I don't find much difference between 1 and 3.

Regards,

ump

@halbacht :
With the upcoming release, if you don't crop the picture and choose the original DVD resolution you'll have your 'killer' feature. :)

[halbacht]

@UMP:
Very encouraging announcement, let's wait and see. Once it works, I am probably about to write an article (maybe even some kind of guide) about the differences in rips targeting TV sets and PC screens.

regards,
halbacht

[UMP]

FU 0.41 is out. Any feedback is welcome :)

Best regards,

ump

[halbacht]

After two days spent in Bristol without access to Internet, here I am with first FU 0.41 tests. This time I am focusing only on support for TV output. Let's start with good news.

A really GREAT one is that FU in version 0.41 has integrated extended explicit support for standalone DVD players! You can choose whether you want to rip in TV display mode (it means 4:3 with PAL PAR, I suppose) and additionally you can choose anamorphic 16:9 mode! Finally!!! These settings influence the choice of resolutions offered for final video size where you now get everything you need for perfect TV rip!

And now back to reality. Although strategic design decisions are excellently made, the implementation is still on the half of the way. Let's see why.

I've made all my tests with 1.16 sec long anamorphic clip made in 2.35:1 DAR. I used two pass XVID (target file size 10 MByte, I experimented with both H.232 and MPEG quantization, VHQ mode 1 to 4, no BFrames, no GMC, no Quarter pixel, PAR square-default), including 128KB audio encoding. All tests are made for TV display mode, anamorphic support, and extra high quality mode (I don't know exectly what does it mean but I suppose its about new resizing technique). Although I've made several tests and I will I will summerize only most important ones:

1. I choosed no cropping at all, it means 720x576 with black bars included! I also choose the same final video size (720x576). This should be the default case in ripping for TV sets (theoretically XVID should encode only the payload and spend a very little space to encode horizontal black bars). In practice the speed of both encoding step is identical (no resizing!) and on my PC it's about 60 Fps. Fantastic!

But there is a bug in this mode and produced file size is only about 1 MByte in size (although the file x.raw.1.fud is about 60 MByte!). When you play it you see only green surfice and hear encoded tone.

2. The same as previous, BUT with minimal resizing to 704x560. In this case everything is almost perfect, but the speed of the second pass is reduced to 10-20 Fps due to (theoretically unnecessary)resizing. But in this case we get a VALID ANAMORPHIC AVI which looks (almost) GREAT on my 16:9 TV set when played from a standalone MPEG4 DVD player! Much, much better then before!!! But I say almost, because luma correction is still mising, and a picture on TV set looks a little bit darker then on PC screen. And as an advice, because in this case resizing is really minimal (720x576 => 704x560) it is probably wiser to use cropping and not resizing, it will save a lot of time with a minimal loss of visual information.

But here are some other problems as well, I think with XVId (hopefully not hej-hej version) or it is something with my settings. Final file size was about 60 MB and not 10 MB as I wanted!

Let' summerize and go to sleep. With version 0.41 FU made really big step towards acquiring a whole new class of users. Bugs are also here but I am confident they will be solved soon. I am also going to do more testing but I think this first run has already shown the most striking problems in this release.

regards,
halbacht

[Wolfman]

I use hiquality mode xvid tv-aspect ratio.
seems to work ok so far. Limited testing.
Tooltips would be nice. Could show options chosen while encoding.
Ability to give a meaningful name to the output file.
----------comment deleted-------re xvid-----
16:9 mode is always grayed out??
Cant see the option to use AC3 sound?? whhoops (not obvious**)
Ability to use AC3 sound but downsize it eg 5.1 to 2.0 or 192 to 128
Could remember last filesize set and use that as new default instead of 700mb each time or use a bitrate of 1200kbps and set the filsize on that.
Option to delete all temp files incl fud's

This should be the default case in ripping for TV sets
I dont understand this? why?

[UMP]

Luma correction (same as AviSynth's 'Limiter' filter) is applied when encoding in "TV mode". You can check this by encoding the same clip with and without TV mode. The green picture issue is fixed.

16:9 mode is always grayed out
Enable the expert mode

[Zhnujm]

@halbacht:
You should take into account that theres only a difference between TV and PC playback if you use an ESS based standalone.
Other play PC resolutions just fine, no need for "Use TV Display Mode"
In fact, if you use this setting you will get a wrong aspect ratio with these players.

@UMP:
It seems to me FairUse uses the "ITU-R blablabla" standard for resizing, is there a way to disable it like in Gknot ?

[UMP]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
@halbacht:
You should take into account that theres only a difference between TV and PC playback if you use an ESS based standalone.
Other play PC resolutions just fine, no need for "Use TV Display Mode"
In fact, if you use this setting you will get a wrong aspect ratio with these players.
halbacht is talking about anamorphic encodings, which allow to keep full vertical resolution from the DVD.

@UMP:
It seems to me FairUse uses the "ITU-R blablabla" standard for resizing, is there a way to disable it like in Gknot ?
FU can use the ITU-R blablabla standard for resizing. To disable it, all you have to do is to use the so-called TV mode ;) (ITU-R ... is only needed to correct AR on PC monitors).

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by UMP
halbacht is talking about anamorphic encodings, which allow to keep full vertical resolution from the DVD.


Yes, i know. But for playback with Sigma/Mediatek players you have disable "TV Mode" and enable "anamorphic" for correct (anamorphic) playback.


Originally posted by UMP
FU can use the ITU-R blablabla standard for resizing. To disable it, all you have to do is to use the so-called TV mode ;) (ITU-R ... is only needed to correct AR on PC monitors).

No, that does not do the same as disabling ITU-R in Gknot, the picture is more vertical stretched with FairUse.
I think Gknot creates exact 4:3 resolutions if ITU-R is deselected, thats what i meant.

example:
FairUse (TV-Mode) -> 704x432 or 640x512
FairUse ->704x384 or 640x464

Gknot without ITU -> 704x400 or 640x480
Gknot with ITU -> 704x384 or 640x464

[Wolfman]

16:9 mode is always grayed out?? When FU detects the source as 4/3 even tho it is really 16:9 (it needs the black bars cropped top and bottom) then 16:9 cannot be used.. Not really sure what it does anyway..as fully cropped output is 16:9.(ish)
The source is a trailer disc

[halbacht]

@UMP, first tests of 0.41a:

Man, you've made it! Green screen probleme is solved, I use 720x576 (no resizing at all) file size is now really 10 MB and not 60 MB (what was it?), no loss of vertical resolution (the same as original movie) and the quality is p-e-r-f-e-c-t! I think the darker picture on TV is possibly due to the better colour saturation on my TV set then on my humble monitor, I have to check it. I continue with tests, I will pick up different sources and do one whole movie.

Congratulations from my side.
P.S. Although I hoped that the speed of the second step will be the same, it has dropped from 60 fps to ~20 fps. But it's not really an issue for me.

@Zhnujm:

I just want to understand what's happening in your case. I suppose you have 16:9 TV set, right? In the preferences menu of my ESS player I can choose 'WIDESCREEN', NORMAL/PS (I think it stays for 'pan and scan', haven't checked it yet) and NORMAL/LB. I think similar choices are available on all standalone players, while the producer cannot know which kind of TV set will be attached to a player, it has to support both. Now if you have 16:9 set and you use something analog to my WIDESCREEN settings, I wonder why you should not have perfect picture when you use anamorhic feature of 0.41a (of course if a DVD is a anamorhic one)! BUT, even if you have 16:9 TV set and you didn't changed your Sigma standalone settings (they are per default 4:3), its normal that you will have 'distorted' picture if you use anamorhic option in FU 0.41a. Its also quite normal that anamorhic movie will be distorted on all 4:3 TV sets. Can you please let me know about this.

@Wolfman:

If a source is declared as 4:3 (even although the real 'payload' is 16:9), the loss of vertical resolution has alreday happened during the preparation process for a DVD. It makes no sense to support anamorhic option here because it is (extremely) useful only in order to preserve the maximal quality of anamorphic sources. As 4:3 source is not anamorhic, the option should stay gray.

regards,
halbacht

[Zhnujm]

I think the point is that these players expect pc-like square pixel resolutions.
For example, you have to deselect "TV-Mode" (anamorphic or not) to get the right aspect ratio, with my ESS based player i have to switch it on.
Here is an example what happens if you use 720x576 (without cropping) with these players: ftp://zhnujm.dyndns.org/aspectjpg.jpg
Top is the original DVD, then 720x576 AVI and bottom 720x528 AVI.
You will get black borders left+right, same happens if you play such a file with a pc.

If you are interested in the output of different players you can look here: ftp://zhnujm.dyndns.org/aspect/player
These are captures from some resolutions to show the difference between the players.

But to stay a bit on topic :D, the anamorphic resize of FairUse works quite good for me, i was searching for such a feature.

[halbacht]

@Zhnujm:
Here is an example what happens if you use 720x576 (without cropping) with these players: ftp://zhnujm.dyndns.org/aspectjpg.jpg
Top is the original DVD, then 720x576 AVI and bottom 720x528 AVI.
You will get black borders left+right, same happens if you play such a file with a pc. I looked at JPGs at your page, and I just wandering about (at least) one thing: If a Medion (Sigma) player introduces horizontal and black bars around the JPEG in 720x576 format (middle picture), what happens when you are looking a DVD in the same (720x576) resolution? I mean do you still see these black bars or not? If not, then a player interpretes JPEGs (and probably AVIs) quite different then MPEG2 material. I haven't got a clue why and what's really happening...

[Wolfman]

A good option would be the ability to specify the output name, also the program to check if the output file already exists ..and if so add a suffix letter then output the file. This would enable the job processing to work in a more intuitive way.

you know why i want this :mad: (many files overwritten)

[Zhnujm]

@halbacht:
Major misunderstandig i think :)
The pictures are screenshots from "running" DVD-Video/AVI files.
So the top picture is taken during playback of the original dvd, the other during playback of the avi files.
I captured the s-video out of the player (elta with Mediatek) with my PC.

[halbacht]

@Zhnujm:

OK, it’s clear now. But my question is still here:

What happens when you are looking a MPEG2 DVD in the same (720x576) resolution? I mean do you still see black bars or not? If not, then ELTA player interprets information about MPEG4 AVI resolution quite different then MPEG2 resolution. For me it is not reasonable :confused: , but it seems that's the way it is with these players...

@All:

Few words about aspect ratio 'settings' in XVID options. Although there is a thread here concerning this topic, I think there are still a lot of uncertainty how to use it and what you can achieve using it, that's why I want to say a few words in hope to make it more clear.

AFAIK, aspect ratio settings in XVID 1.x are --ONLY-- about writing AR information which you have selected in this XVID option tab into the container file header, so that during a playback the (software or hardware) player can (eventually) use this information to produce correctly (on-the-fly) resized picture. On that way you can inform the player to interpret anamorhic material correctly. But this is, again, only then useful, if you have made NO RESIZING after (XVID) compressing, as it is now possible with FU 0.41a (probably soon 0.42 with XVID 1.0 RC4).

This XVID feature has --NOTHING TO DO-- with the way how XVID uses this information internally, in a matter of fact it -- DOESN'T USE IT AT ALL--! You will get ALWAYS the same XVID output, doesn't matter what you choose for aspect ratio (because XVID does not resize the coded material). This is not clearly indicated in XVID documentation, and can lead to misunderstanding and wrong expectations, so I think it is good to say it this way.

regards,
halbacht

[UMP]

Originally posted by Wolfman
A good option would be the ability to specify the output name, also the program to check if the output file already exists ..and if so add a suffix letter then output the file. This would enable the job processing to work in a more intuitive way.

you know why i want this :mad: (many files overwritten)
You shold enable the "generate unique filenames" option.

[Wolfman]

Well the unique names are not to my taste. session1 blugh :eek: but I suppose its a minor detail.
halbacht.. are you saying the output from fairuse is always the same regardless of the tv aspect setting and that just sets a flag in the avi header information which is then read by the standalone player to resize in a slightly different way... or am i completely wrong..

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by halbacht
What happens when you are looking a MPEG2 DVD in the same (720x576) resolution? I mean do you still see black bars or not? If not, then ELTA player interprets information about MPEG4 AVI resolution quite different then MPEG2 resolution. For me it is not reasonable :confused: , but it seems that's the way it is with these players...


Yes its different for AVI and MPEG-2, otherwise you wont have a correct display for all "normal" encoded AVI files and you would have to use a setting like "TV Display Mode" to get a correct playback.
AVI files are always 4:3 and so should it be handled by the player.

@Wolfman:
The TV Mode setting in FaiUse really changes the Video Size, the aspect ratio settings in Xvid do not.
Unfortunatly no hardware player makes use of these settings.

[nightrhyme]

Thanx for this fine software. I'm testing it out and i don't seem to be able to avoid BLACK BARS when Encoding 16:9 movies.
Hope you can help me.

Thanx in advance.

Off topic. What is the name of the Flash software used for the tutorial on your website ?

This is the settings used:
*IMAGE REMOVED*

*IMAGE REMOVED*

And the result:
*IMAGE REMOVED*

Should look like this:
*IMAGE REMOVED*

[UMP]

Originally posted by nightrhyme
[B]Thanx for this fine software. I'm testing it out and i don't seem to be able to avoid BLACK BARS when Encoding 16:9 movies.
Hope you can help me.
Maybe are you requesting for Pan & Scan ? Is so, you should crop from the left and right of the picture.

Off topic. What is the name of the Flash software used for the tutorial on your website ?
The software used is ScreenFlash Pro (http://unflash.com/)

[nightrhyme]

Originally posted by UMP
Maybe are you requesting for Pan & Scan ? Is so, you should crop from the left and right of the picture.


The software used is ScreenFlash Pro (http://unflash.com/)

Thanx for reply and link to flash proggy :-)

I don't quite understand the pan scan thing. I just want the BLACK BARS at the top and bottom cropped away like I illustrated with this screen shot, The bars marked with red.

*IMAGE REMOVED*



I don't understand how cropping from the left and right would remove the BLACK BARS ?

What is the intention of the CROP function if not to remove the BLACK BARS ?

Thanx in advance

[UMP]

I fear I don't understand how you expect this 16/9 picture to be displayed on a (more or less) 4/3 computer screen without the black bars ? Could you please add the expected screen edges on your screenshot, or do you have a 16/9 TV set ?

[nightrhyme]

Again thanx for taking the time to answer me :-)

Of course the black bars will be present anyway on a 4/3 TV/Monitor.
I just don't want to waste any bits on BLACK BARS while encoding.

MPC will add the black bars but i don't want them in the rip.

I guess that's not possible with FairUse ?
If not. Them I'm very curious to know what the cropping option is for then ?

I also would like to add that FairUse is the first AUTOEncoding Tool I have found that truly Utilizes the Hyper Threading feature on Pentium processors.

Thanx in advance

[UMP]

The black bars are _not_ included in the rip if you use the cropping feature. You can see this with MPC in windowed mode by setting the zoom to 100% ;)

[nightrhyme]

Originally posted by UMP
The black bars are _not_ included in the rip if you use the cropping feature. You can see this with MPC in windowed mode by setting the zoom to 100% ;)

Sounds good :)
I guess I just have to find out how to make this work.
I posted screen shots of all settings used in the rip.
All screenshots are from MPC with 100% zoom.
You can see that I cropped and Chose the resolution 672 x 288 but I end up with a rip with the resolution 672 x 504
So I get (504-288) worth of black bars.
What am I doing wrong :confused:

Again thanx

Settings:
*IMAGE REMOVED*

End result 672 x 504:
*IMAGE REMOVED*

[UMP]

Please open your movie with GSpot and see the reported resolution.

[nightrhyme]

:eek: I'm soooo sorry. You are absolutely right. Gspot reports the the correct resolution 672 x 288.

Somehow MPC just refuses to display actual resolution. Must have messed with some settings.
Don't I feel foolish (º¿º)

I apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the trouble :rolleyes:

So all that's left to say is: Thank you for continuing development of this very fine software ;)

[Wolfman]

Thats you in the picture Nightrhyme :D

[nightrhyme]

Originally posted by Wolfman
Thats you in the picture Nightrhyme :D

Yeah :(
Will let the screenshots stay for a couple of days to show my stupidity :(

[UMP]

http://fairuse.free.fr/images/private/lol.gif

Don't worry, that's fine :D

[Wolfman]

New question.. will fairuse be able to back up my Svcd's or Vcds.. or in the future will it be able to convert mpeg2 Tv episodes captured from TV??

Also the audio on some encodes is still way too low ..even with audio boost.. is there any way of boosting audio even further.

Just read about Ring protection.. any thoughts

[Wilbert]

http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_en/download_allopass.html

What the hell? This is not very nice of you, since you used fu2k's code to build on.

(Btw, I saw that the license is QPL, not that it matters though.) Maybe someone can compile the source code (0.42), which can be found here

http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_en/index.html

[Video Dude]

Wilbert, it seems 0.42a is offered for free once again. No more $2 fee.

[spectra]

i found some muxing problems in 0.42b. if i let fu create the cbr-mp3 file and let fu mux it to avi or mkv it gets a little out of sync at the end (videofile=22:05min ac3=22:05min mp3=22:06). but if i mux the fu-created files on my own with the vdubmod delivered in the fu-package, it is perfectly sync. i didn't try a long movie so far. can someone acknowledge this ??

[UMP]

Originally posted by spectra
i found some muxing problems in 0.42b. if i let fu create the cbr-mp3 file and let fu mux it to avi or mkv it gets a little out of sync at the end (videofile=22:05min ac3=22:05min mp3=22:06). but if i mux the fu-created files on my own with the vdubmod delivered in the fu-package, it is perfectly sync. i didn't try a long movie so far. can someone acknowledge this ??
I can. :D
This issue is solved by FU 0.42c.

[lakedude]

42c? All I can find is 41????

[promitheas]

Hey UMP
if i understood well, are you the author of fairuse?
Cause i have a suggestion to make and i can see no e-mail address in your page.

[spectra]

Originally posted by UMP
I can. :D
This issue is solved by FU 0.42c.

thanks for the quick reponse and hopefully the 0.42c is out soon.

[buzzqw]

Allopass again :eek:

UMP what's happening ? :confused:

Thanks anyway for your effort and time ! :)

BHH

[Wilbert]

The source of 0.43b is available. I will try to compile it this weekend (unless someone beats me).

http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_en/index.html

changelist:

http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_en/history.html

[UMP]

Sorry for the delayed answer.

fu2k is the original author, I further develop FU since last summer. The email is available on the download page.

As you can see, I decided to ask for a small fee for the download, as allowed by the GPL.

Last but not least, the source code for FU 0.43c is available. This one fixes minor issues and should be the version you'll build, Wilbert.
Please note that the sources are in .NET 2003 format, and can't be compiled "as is" with VS6 (no offense intended here, only it is a frequently asked question).

[buzzqw]

Hi all

link:
FairUse 0.43c (http://www.cdrinfo.pl/download2kilgor.php?filename=software/video-konwersja dvd/fu043c.exe&id=4009180226&baza=soft)

changelog:
http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_en/history.html

But please support FairUse. UMP does a great job. Donate at last 2$

BHH

P.S.I am not affiliate (and i cannot even understud "polach") with http://www.cdrinfo.pl just found a link someware on internet

edit Wilbert: edited post a bit. Thanks for the link!

[Video Dude]

I see that the link for the source code was removed on the Fair Use page. If you pay the $10, can you download the source code along with the compiled program or was it removed all together? Is the source code is no longer free?

[Wilbert]

The sourcecode should be free. UMP, I would like to have the source code of 0.44. Could you mail it to me?

[UMP]

The source code is available at the right bottom of the french download page : http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_fr/download.html "Code source disponible ICI" or here is a direct link : http://fairuse.free.fr/Release/fu-src.zip

It sould still be on the english page too. I'll correct this as soon as I'm at home.

Regards,

ump

EDIT: Wilbert, keep in mind the source code must be compiled with VS.NET 2003 (or you'll have plenties of linking errors). ;)

[Wilbert]

Thanks very much!

[buzzqw]

is allowed to download fairuse setup (from external site) even if UMP use allopass ?

is allowed to publish fu setup file (as builded from free source) in external site ? (i think yes.., 'cause GPL) :confused:

Thanks
:confused: :confused: :confused:

BHH

[Wilbert]

is allowed to publish fu setup file (as builded from free source) in external site ? (i think yes.., 'cause GPL) ?
Yes, it is allowed. Please, post a link!

[buzzqw]

Direct download link (http://www.64k.it/andres/fu044.exe)

But please support UMP work Donate!!! (http://fairuse.free.fr/lang_en/donate.html)

BHH

[nightrhyme]

Trying to figure out different settings i FairUse ans stumpled on the SET CREDITS START option. Does it work like using Zones in Xvid's codec settings or should I still aplly those manuelly to give credits lower bitrate ?

Thanx in advance

[nightrhyme]

Originally posted by nightrhyme
Trying to figure out different settings i FairUse ans stumpled on the SET CREDITS START option. Does it work like using Zones in Xvid's codec settings or should I still aplly those manuelly to give credits lower bitrate ?

Thanx in advance

I testet it in my own way. Encoded a movie and cut the credits off Checket the bitrate on entire movie and bitrate on credits that I cut off. used gspot. Very starnge. The bitrate on the cut off credits is almost double of the rest of the movie.
Hmm I wonder what the SET CREDITS START option is for then ?

[UMP]

FU uses XviD zones. The last zone if credit start is set automatically gets a constant quantizer of 16.

Regards,

ump

[Wilbert]

v0.91/v0.92 are out. See first post of this thread.

@UMP,
The source on your webpage, is it v0.91 (because that's what is says when you run the program) or is it v0.92 (and you forgot to update the version number)?

[craigpro]

ok stupid question time.

all I need to do is download the FU044.exe from Buzzqw's site, then unRAR Wilbert's FU091.RAR on top of it?

Also something I haven't been able to work out as yet - will FU allow me to encode/resize my MPEG2 DVB-T recordings, or does it ONLY rip/encode from an original DVD?

Thanks,
Craigpro

[Wilbert]

all I need to do is download the FU044.exe from Buzzqw's site, then unRAR Wilbert's FU091.RAR on top of it?
Yup.

Someone else has to answer your second question :) It shouldn't be hard to figure that out.

[sillKotscha]

Originally posted by craigpro

all I need to do is download the FU044.exe from Buzzqw's site, then unRAR Wilbert's FU091.RAR on top of it?

ehrm, where can I find Buzzqw's site - google, no luck... and his/Buzzqw 'www' button is linkin' to mpaa.org :D

[Wilbert]

See his post of 16th June 2004 17:36.

[sillKotscha]

oohh, :D

thanks... and next one: I'm still unable to find FU091.RAR (your site doesn't contain a compile...)

[pacohaas]

i think the best thing to do is download the new demo version(0.92) from the official site (http://fairuse.free.fr/), then copy the non-demo FU.exe (http://www.geocities.com/wilbertdijkhof/FU091.rar) over the demo version. I will update the non-demo compile to 0.92 once the 0.92 source is posted.

[sillKotscha]

oh wonderbra... thanks :)

[Wilbert]

v0.93 is out! Link can be found on the first page of this thread.

[PatchWorKs]

(already proposed but NOT accepted in the FU forum)

Well, AFAIK FairUse is a standalone-player oriented backup tool. :rolleyes:
I can't understand why it can't do (K)VCD/SVCD by using QuEnc/FreeEnc. :cool:
I hope to see a theora-only based version (that means REALLY free backup) too. :D

Anyway good app.

[UMP]

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
(already proposed but NOT accepted in the FU forum)

Well, AFAIK FairUse is a standalone-player oriented backup tool. :rolleyes:
I can't understand why it can't do (K)VCD/SVCD by using QuEnc/FreeEnc. :cool:
I hope to see a theora-only based version (that means REALLY free backup) too. :D

Anyway good app.

Maybe you should ask Wilbert to add these features, he seems to be very active lately on the FairUse project... :rolleyes:

[Wilbert]

Maybe you should ask Wilbert to add these features, he seems to be very active lately on the FairUse project... :rolleyes:
;) You can always ask me, but I'm not a coder :) If the FU folks don't add it, it won't be added in the near future.

[buzzqw]

FairUse 1.0 is OUT !

changelog




History

1.0
added:
- subpicture description (director's comment, children, etc.)
- HD (High Definition) encoding mode

fixed:
- forced subtitles were not added correctly for some movies
- non-forced subtitles were sometimes added while not needed
- better audio tracks handling with some poorly authored discs
- fixed a hang that occured with some poorly authored discs
- Lanczos resize mode state is now correctly saved
- default OggVorbis bitrate is applied as intended
- fixed the undersize when encoding in IVTC mode with the DivX codec

changed:
- tweaked the way Field Align mode is handled
- XviD zones settings are now forced to prevent misuse of the zones
- XviD now always encodes in target size mode
- encodings can now be ran if there is no ASPI layer and no DVD drive
- chapter numbers in file names are written with two digits
- better resolution/Lanczos suggestion handling


Here the link to Light version (encode upt to 700mb)
http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/FU-Setup_LE.exe

Here the link to sourcecode http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip

Thanks UMP !

BHH

PS. Someone would compile a free version ?

[Wilbert]

PS. Someone would compile a free version ?
Done! See first post. Btw, we didn't have to test it yet.

[bourtzovlakas]

The free version doesn't seem to work....
Followed the instructions in the first post,without success...

[buzzqw]

@bourtzovlakas

what's the problem ? I run a short test encoding with success.
Rar archive will put out a FU.exe.

I suggest you to launch first fu_le.exe just one time and then exit. Next time launch fu.exe and all is ok.

best regards

BHH

[bourtzovlakas]

I suggest you to launch first fu_le.exe just one time and then exit. Next time launch fu.exe and all is ok.

Tried that also.....no luck....(after uninstalling,re-installing of course).
I get the error message about light edition not being able to produce files larger than 700 Mb.....
I must be doing something wrong,but i can understand what....

[buzzqw]

OK, I got the problem.
And i had the same message.

I think Wilber must do a research in code and fix something


Thanks

BHH

[Wilbert]

I think that check is done in main.cpp (#ifndef FAIRUSE_PRO ...). We will look at it tomorrow ...

[bluestar]

please check the code again... fu.exe still showing le

[Wilbert]

please check the code again... fu.exe still showing le
Ok, I replaced it a few minutes ago (see first post of this thread).

Could you check it whether it really produces encodings > 700 Mb.

[UMP]

There is no "trick" in the code. If FU allows you to set higher than 700 MB file size, then it's ok. ;)

Please note there is a bug that will produce really small file sizes if you ask for a size over 3.5-4GB. This will be fixed in the next release.

[Wilbert]

There is no "trick" in the code. If FU allows you to set higher than 700 MB file size, then it's ok.
I didn't allow you to. Perhaps you forgot the remove the restriction in the code (that you uploaded to the website)?

UMP, are the original authors (fu2k) mentioned somewhere in the documentation?

[UMP]

Perhaps you forgot the remove the restriction in the code (that you uploaded to the website)?
The available source code is the one used to build the publicly available release, as required by the GPL. But you already know this, osn't it ?

UMP, are the original authors (fu2k) mentioned somewhere in the documentation?
I always had the feeling that fu2k doesn't like "advertising" around his name. I have the feeling I should't name him unless he explicitly asks to be.

I didn't allow you to.
If my presence on this forum is no longed desired, please feel free to shutdown my account.


@Wilbert:

Obviously you don't like the way things have gone with FU, but you should remember what happened after the source code was released : nothing.

It appeared that no one was willing to bring the FU project back to life. I then did my best to update FU and bring it where it is today. Had you rather the project to stay in an idle state forever ?

Here is a quote of a discussion I had with fu2k :
fu2k: As long as you stick to the GPL (ie. keeping source code available), then you can decide whether you want to charge or not, I don't mind either way.

However, if you decide to charge a fee, I expect that one of the following will happen:

(a) The fee will discourage people from using the software, and the userbase will shrink substantially, or

(b) Someone else will get the source, build it and host the downloads themself without charging.

You need to think about this and do what is right for you. As long as the GPL is respected, I am not too worried about what happens.

fu2k

ump: To be honest, I really hope to see (b) happen, which would allow for wide distribution while some people will get it from the FU website. Of course, the source code will still be available.

Of course, if I had to definitely stop working on the project, I would make the latest source code and build available for free download.

Now the point is, I'm still having lot of pleasure to work on FU. Unlike the author of AutoGK, lack of motivation is not the reason why I decided to charge for the download. I decided to charge because I had and still don't have no other choice ATM.

This said, think what you want to, it does no longer much matter to me, I'm getting used to see past FU enthusiasts spit on me and my current position.

Regards,

ump

[spectra]

well i used FU since those old divx 3.11 days and still using it. i think it went a good way since then especially the mkv support is great.

please ump keep on the good work with fu and wilbert your compilation work is also appreciated.

[bluestar]

another appreciated user... there are a number of softwares around..DVD shrink, DVDx, Gordian etc. I still like FU........ great little UI. Your works always be noticed.....

thanks

[shevegen]

I like to have options.

GK ... FU
the world is a good place (well for at least 20 more years hehehehhe but wondering what will be in 20 years... hopefully not Sony :P )

[Wilbert]

Fairuse 1.1 is out (see first post). Please check it doesn't add the logo to your encoding.

[buzzqw]

it's ok.
i had encoded a small sample movie and it hasn't the logo

thanks Wilbert !

BHH

[OlDer]

Originally posted by Wilbert
Fairuse 1.1 is out (see first post)
There is 1.2 (http://www.fairusewizard.com/lang_en/history.html) already :)

[Wilbert]

Fairuse 1.2 is out!

[kythorn]

I've been using this today for the first time since the fu2k days, and it seems pretty slick.

One thing that crops up is how episodic television discs, or a DVD with two movies on it is handled in automatic or semi automatic modes.

It works exactly the way I'd want (checking each chain seperately for cropping/IVTC), but seems to think that I want ALL of them together to fit into the target file size, judging on the tiny resolutions it comes up with.

At first I thought about just increasing the target file size by 4x, but that won't work for me because sometimes there's only two or three episodes on a given disc.

Another idea that grew out of this is some way to automatically deal with having one program chain actually be two episodes for a two-parter (some manufacturers do do this). Could there be a way to set the target size with a time threshhold? 50 minutes and under do 350, over 50 minutes do 700, etc?

Granted, I can compensate for all of these things manually, and I have no idea how hard these ideas would be to incorporate, but I think they they would improve FU quite a bit if they got added (at least from my subjective point of view).

[UMP]

Multi episode discs can be handled two ways on the chain selection screen :

a) cache selected chains (multisession)
Select several chains, configure one, and all the others get the same settings. This makes sense since several episodes are likely to share the same cropping/field mode settings.

b) cache selected chains (semi-auto)
Specify a global size on the options screen, select several chains, and FU will individually crop and determine field mode for each chain, then it will dispatch the specified size among the chains based on their duration.

i.e. if there is one 60' movie and a 30' bonus for a desired size of 600 MB, the 60' chain will get 400 MB and the 30' chain will get 200 MB. Very useful to backup discs containing a lot of clips not sharing the same encoding properties.

[air74]

objectless. i've found.

[djh]

FairUse 2.0 has just been released...

[Wilbert]

Check out first post!

Please test it, and report whether there are no restrictions anymore (700 MB limit, logo).

[shevegen]

Fair Use rocks!

[280zx]

Check out first post!

Please test it, and report whether there are no restrictions anymore (700 MB limit, logo).


It won't let me select a range to encode. I can select it, but fairuse just encodes the whole dvd and ignores the range I selected. Yes, I installed the light edition and replaced the .exe with the one provided in the first post. Could you fix that? :(

[Wilbert]

280zx, could you try the following (should be version 2.0):
http://bbsrv.imp.leidenuniv.nl/~wilbert/FU-20.exe

The one in the first post is version 2.1a which has that bug.

[280zx]

^^ Thanks a lot for posting that, it's letting me select the range to encode now, but I'm getting this error...

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1663/snap19ao.th.jpg (http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snap19ao.jpg)

Would that have something to do with installing the 2.1a light edition of fairuse while using the 2.0 exe? With the 2.1a exe the video encodes normally so it's not a missing codec.


Would you happen to still have the 2.0 light edition installation of fairuse? Thanks again.

[Wilbert]

Would you happen to still have the 2.0 light edition installation of fairuse? Thanks again.
Don't know. Please try it.

[280zx]

I was asking if you saved the 2.0 version of FU-Setup_LE.exe. The only one I have access to is the 2.1a version on fairusewizard.com.

[Wilbert]

http://bbsrv.imp.leidenuniv.nl/~wilbert/FU-Setup_LE_v20.exe

[280zx]

Thanks a lot for the help Wilbert, that fixed the problem. :D

[Taurus]

Well, after a few hours of testing around with the different builds provided
by Wilbert, I must say that none exceeds the 700 MB limit on my side.
Carefully uninstalled each component and replaced the associate Fu.exe before any new run.
Maybe someone sheds some light on the right order how to install?
Tested with binary's from Page 1 of this thread and the ones a few lines above :)
Thanks in advance.

Cheers

Taurus

[celtic_druid]

http://mirror05.x264.nl/celtic_druid/force.php?file=./fu-setup.exe
Full installer, 2.1, but with (hopefully) working range settings, >700MB limit, etc.

[Taurus]

@celtic_druid
Thanks, will give this a try.
I will confirm later if it is working or not.

Cheers

Taurus

(edit)
No chance, didn't work. 699 MB. Same as before. :mad:

[280zx]

Thanks for the attempt CD, but yeah it still has the 700mb limit. Range selection works though.

[promitheas]

it works ok!

[celtic_druid]

Think I might have fixed it now. Just got to test it. The installer works ok though? Also I updated x264, XviD, oggenc, lame and vorbisgain.

[280zx]

Think I might have fixed it now. Just got to test it. The installer works ok though? Also I updated x264, XviD, oggenc, lame and vorbisgain.


The installer seemed to work fine. One strange little quirk though, everytime after I run fairuse and return to the start button, it informs me that a new program has been installed.

Also, do you mean you updated fairuse's internal version of xvid etc?

[celtic_druid]

Exactly, the internal versions. From recollection the old ones were compiled by me anyway.

My start menu doesn't do that, but I'm running win2k. I will know if the changes I made worked (in regards to > 700) when I get back from the gym tonight.

[280zx]

Sounds good. :cool: The start menu bug was worse than I originally thought though. After running any program, then returning to the start menu, it states that a new program was just installed (annoying bubble pops up). Uninstalling fairuse stopped it so that's definitely what was causing it in xp.

[celtic_druid]

Ok, seems to work, at least the log file reports the correct bitrate instead of just 700. Limit is now (in theory) 8.4GB. So if you set it to 19GB's you would get 8.4.

See previous link for download.

Someone might want to try it with splitting enabled, 'cause I didn't test that at all.

[280zx]

It works! Range selection, no 700mb limitation, outputting as 2, 700mb files. Thanks for doing that celtic_druid, much appreciated.:D

Here's a link (http://rapidshare.de/files/7772789/fairuse-2.1-celtic_druid.zip.html)to cd's .exe and the light edition of fairuse 2.1 installer from the fairuse website. The "new program installed" prompts bug was getting to me. You could also turn off the highlight newly installed programs option in the taskbar if you're using xp and cd's installer.

[Wilbert]

celtic_druid, could you upload the source somewhere? Then i can add it to the first post of this thread.

[celtic_druid]

diff -u FU-Source/DecodeMain.cpp new/DecodeMain.cpp
--- FU-Source/DecodeMain.cpp 2005-09-05 22:38:16.000000000 +1000
+++ new/DecodeMain.cpp 2005-11-17 23:50:34.421875000 +1100
@@ -577,9 +577,9 @@
credits = credits * 24 / 30;
}
if(_session->chapterSplit) {
- targetSize = min((unsigned)_session->fileSize, 0x2BCu) * _segmentLength / totalFrames;
+ targetSize = min((unsigned)_session->fileSize, 0x219Au) * _segmentLength / totalFrames;
} else {
- targetSize = min((unsigned)_session->fileSize, 0x2BCu) / _session->filePart;
+ targetSize = min((unsigned)_session->fileSize, 0x219Au) / _session->filePart;
}

// determine overhead
diff -u FU-Source/demoMode.h new/demoMode.h
--- FU-Source/demoMode.h 2005-09-05 22:29:56.000000000 +1000
+++ new/demoMode.h 2005-11-16 16:20:45.312500000 +1100
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
//#define CSS_DISABLED
//#define DEMO_MODE
#define FAIRUSE_PRO
+#define LOGO_ENABLED
\ No newline at end of file
diff -u FU-Source/Main.cpp new/Main.cpp
--- FU-Source/Main.cpp 2005-09-05 22:38:16.000000000 +1000
+++ new/Main.cpp 2005-11-17 23:49:44.734375000 +1100
@@ -1392,11 +1392,11 @@
return true;

case _DlgIdProjectLogo:
- if(TranslateMessageBox("LOGO_WARNING", "T_LOGO_WARNING", 0, "The full edition of FairUse Wizard does not overlay any logo.\n\nDo you want to open the full version download page ?", "FairUSe Wizard - Free Edition", MB_YESNO | MB_DEFBUTTON1 | MB_ICONINFORMATION) == IDYES) {
+ /*if(TranslateMessageBox("LOGO_WARNING", "T_LOGO_WARNING", 0, "The full edition of FairUse Wizard does not overlay any logo.\n\nDo you want to open the full version download page ?", "FairUSe Wizard - Free Edition", MB_YESNO | MB_DEFBUTTON1 | MB_ICONINFORMATION) == IDYES) {
sprintf(buffer, "http://fairusewizard.com/lang_%s/download.html", Ifo::Language::IdentDescShort(_preferredSubtitles >= 0 ? _preferredSubtitles : _preferredAudio));
strlwr(buffer);
ShellExecute(NULL, "open", buffer, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
- }
+ }*/
Button_SetCheck(GetDlgItem(_projectPage, _DlgIdProjectLogo), BST_CHECKED);
return true;
}
@@ -3845,7 +3845,7 @@
TranslateMessageBox("CROPPING_REGION", "T_CROPPING_REGION", _sheet, "The cropping region you have selected removes too much of the frame.\nThe area to be encoded can be no smaller than 48 x 48 pixels in size.", "Cropping Region", MB_OK | MB_ICONEXCLAMATION);
return -1;
}
- if(_rangeStart > 0 || _rangeEnd < _section->fields / 2 - 1) {
+/* if(_rangeStart > 0 || _rangeEnd < _section->fields / 2 - 1) {
char buffer[4096];
if(TranslateMessageBox("LE_WARNING_RANGE", "T_LE_WARNING", _sheet, "The Light Edition of FairUse Wizard doesn't allow custom range selection.\n\nDo you want to open the full version download page ?", "FairUSe Wizard - Light Edition", MB_YESNO | MB_DEFBUTTON1 | MB_ICONINFORMATION) == IDYES) {
sprintf(buffer, "http://fairusewizard.com/lang_%s/download.html", Ifo::Language::IdentDescShort(_preferredSubtitles >= 0 ? _preferredSubtitles : _preferredAudio));
@@ -3855,7 +3855,7 @@
SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeStart), 0);
SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeEnd), _section->fields / 2 - 1);
return -1;
- }
+ }*/
_rangeExtractSubs = Button_GetCheck(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeDemuxSubs));
return 0;
}
@@ -3898,6 +3898,15 @@

void X::_RangeRangeState()
{
+// Slider_SetSel(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeSlider), _rangeStart, _rangeEnd, true);
+ unsigned max, temp;
+
+ max = _section->fields / 2 - 1;
+ _rangeStart = min(GetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeStart), 0), max);
+ _rangeEnd = min(GetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeEnd), max), max);
+ if(_rangeStart > _rangeEnd) {
+ temp = _rangeStart; _rangeStart = _rangeEnd; _rangeEnd = temp;
+ }
Slider_SetSel(GetDlgItem(_rangePage, _DlgIdRangeSlider), _rangeStart, _rangeEnd, true);
}

@@ -5644,7 +5653,7 @@
char buffer[4096];

fileSize = GetTextInt(GetDlgItem(pageHandle, _DlgIdEncodingFileSize), ~0);
- if(fileSize > 700) {
+/* if(fileSize > 700) {
if(TranslateMessageBox("LE_WARNING_SIZE", "T_LE_WARNING", _sheet, "The Light Edition of FairUse Wizard doesn't allow to create files greater than 700 MB.\n\nDo you want to open the full version download page ?", "FairUSe Wizard - Light Edition", MB_YESNO | MB_DEFBUTTON1 | MB_ICONINFORMATION) == IDYES) {
sprintf(buffer, "http://fairusewizard.com/lang_%s/download.html", Ifo::Language::IdentDescShort(_preferredSubtitles >= 0 ? _preferredSubtitles : _preferredAudio));
strlwr(buffer);
@@ -5653,16 +5662,16 @@
SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(pageHandle, _DlgIdEncodingFileSize), 700);
SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(pageHandle, _DlgIdEncodingFilePart), 1);
return false;
- }
+ }*/

- if(_encodingMode == DivXCompressor::EncodingModeQuantizer) {
+/* if(_encodingMode == DivXCompressor::EncodingModeQuantizer) {
if(TranslateMessageBox("LE_WARNING_QUALITY", "T_LE_WARNING", _sheet, "Quantizer based encoding is only available in the Full Edition of FairUse Wizard.\n\nDo you want to open the full version download page ?", "FairUSe Wizard - Light Edition", MB_YESNO | MB_DEFBUTTON1 | MB_ICONINFORMATION) == IDYES) {
sprintf(buffer, "http://fairusewizard.com/lang_%s/download.html", Ifo::Language::IdentDescShort(_preferredSubtitles >= 0 ? _preferredSubtitles : _preferredAudio));
strlwr(buffer);
ShellExecute(NULL, "open", buffer, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
}
return false;
- }
+ }*/
return true;
}

@@ -8976,9 +8985,9 @@
//}
if(validSettings == false) {
// file size
- _introFileSize = 700;
- SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_optionsPage, _DlgIdEncodingFileSize), 700);
- SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_optionsPage, _DlgIdIntroFilePart), 1);
+// _introFileSize = 700;
+// SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_optionsPage, _DlgIdEncodingFileSize), 700);
+// SetTextInt(GetDlgItem(_optionsPage, _DlgIdIntroFilePart), 1);
sprintf(buffer, "%u", _introFileSize);
WritePrivateProfileString("Options", "DefaultFileSize2", buffer, IniPath);
return -1;
@@ -10230,7 +10239,7 @@
createGnuKey();
Instance(instance);
sprintf(versionInfo, "%s", version);
- sprintf(versionInfo, "%s LE", version);
+// sprintf(versionInfo, "%s LE", version);
Version(versionInfo);
_DiagnosticInit();
_Diagnostic("%s log file\n", Version());


Note the hex value for 700 that I had to change.

Anyone want the link to the installer script? Perhaps someone can fix it?

[Thomas_AR]

Stupid question:
In this treadt a version is offered which breaks the 700MB limit. This is normaly a feature of the full version on the FairUse homepage for which you have to pay. Can somebody explain that please, or i am missing something?

[celtic_druid]

Explain what exactly?
FairUse is GPL, that means that it can be sold, but the source code must be made available. I guess the full version source would be to available to those who have paid for the full version, however the light version source is available to all and the above patch fixes the limitations. No idea about the differences between the above and the real full version. But it can definatly encode more than 700MB's.

[Thomas_AR]

Does the patch also fix these limitations mentioned at the homepage:

Only available in the Full Edition :

Encode much faster !
Encode much faster with the Dual-Core, SMP, and Hyper-Threading processors optimised build !

Optimise your encodings with the "quality" mode !
Get the best possible quality while only using exactly the needed space. The quality mode is best suited for the archiving of DVD quality movies !

Break the 700 MB limit !
Encode to 1400 MB (or even more) target file size for superior video and audio quality !

Select exactly what to encode !
Remove any unneeded or repeating credits, encode only your favorite movie parts, ...

[celtic_druid]

1) Not really. More upto the encoder anyway since that is the most CPU intensive.
2) I think so. That was a limit on DivX though wasn't it? I don't have DivX installed.
3) Already covered that.
4) Yes.

Download the installer (or the single exe posted above) and test it yourself.

[sillKotscha]

Here is FairUse 2.2 to celebrate the new year that's coming ! (http://www.dvd-guides.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,91/topic,12839.0)

Fixed:
- fixed compatibility with all current (and hopefully future) DivX codec versions
- fixed a crash after parsing IFO files with some discs
- fixed the "incomplete movie" bug that showed up with some homemade discs - ISO images can now be opened even if no physical drive is found
- fixed the checkboxes behaviour on the audio transcoding screen
- default encoding profile os no longer overwritten when customized for one encoding
- fixed potential problems with data caching
- fixed minor GUI glitches

Added:
- added iPod Video encoding (see profiles, full version only)
- added encoding profiles (standard, standard with ESS compatibility, custom codec settings)
- the codec settings can now be customized for all codecs

Changed:
- updated the internal XviD codec
- updated the internal x264 codec

do you plan MP4 support...? I mean you do use x264 via fvw and store that file in an avi, hmm.

[celtic_druid]

http://mirror05.x264.nl/celtic_druid/force.php?file=./fu2.2-setup.exe

In case anyone is interested.

[Thomas_AR]

I am interestet :)
Thanks a lot.

[Wilbert]

@celtic_druid,

Where did you find the source on their site? I searched for it, but couldn't find it.

[celtic_druid]

Same link as always which is in the FAQ as well as I think Patchwork's signature.
http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip

I updated XviD to 1.1 final, lame to 3.97b2, oggenc and x264 as well.

Installer is basically the same, so probably the same issues. New registry keys for 2.2 though so that is changed, plus I updated Innosetup since last time I think, so maybe it is ok?

[Automan]

Thank you celtic_druid for your setup package. Very apreciated.

My best regards.

Happy New Year 2006 to everyone!

[loopyloops]

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this - but I am sure I'll find out :-)

I've also contacted ump, but maybe he's away. In any case, all of a sudden, instead of getting 700mb files (I have the full version, btw), I end up with 15kb files - and I get no error or anything.

Would someone be able to help me out and take a look at my log file? This seems to have come on all of a sudden - one day it worked, and now, not so much. I'm wondering if some kind of codec update is messing with the program.


Sorry, nevermind, this problem is now poping up all over the FUW support site, and ump's fixing it soon - when he's better - has the flu :-(

[Automan]

Why you don't test the Celtic_druid Build, there are TWO versions, 2.1 and 2.2!
See if the same problem happends again.
First UNINSTALL the program, then install the *new* version.

It is just an idea.

Best Regards

[weaver4]

What input formats will FairUse support? Does the source need to be a DVD or can it be a ripped DVD? Will it accept an avi? Or DV2? Website does not give much detail.

[Automan]

Hi,

FU just supports his own format AND DVDDecrypter ISO!
Just that. You can create ONE iso file from your DVD with DVDDecrypter and then open it with FU.

I hope it helps.

[robster]

What input formats will FairUse support? Does the source need to be a DVD or can it be a ripped DVD? Will it accept an avi? Or DV2? Website does not give much detail.

it currently supports 1) ripping from a DVD or 2) converting an ISO image made from another ripper (eg: DVD Decrypter) as inputs.

[lantern]

I think that there is a new version of Fairuse Wizard available. Version 2.4? The source is available from the Fairuse Wizard FAQ (http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip). I don't know if it reflects v 2.4 though.

From the Fairuse Wizard Support Forum:

FairUse 2.4 is out !

Due to a recent hard drive failure the auto-update feature won't be able to upgrade from previous releases. Users who got the last notification mail are welcome to reuse the same download link.

Notification mails will be sent during the next week, so please be patient and don't sent emails about the download link until Feb., 6th.

Users experiencing problems with iPod final muxing are welcome to test and report their findings.
The infamous 12kb bug is fixed, and so is the crash at the beginning of the encoding.

Regards,

ump


There is no changelog that I could find though.

[Automan]

Hello All,

Please, Celtic_Druid, compile this new source code, and make it public, I realy love your last build, it simply rocks.

I hope you help to the rest of us... as always.

Best regards to all FU fans.

-Automan.

[celtic_druid]

I'll see what I can do tonight.

Edit:
The source package is still 2.2.

[Automan]

Hi all,

The 2.4 version has been released, could you Celtic_Druid make a build with the new source, it will be greatly appreciated by the rest of us.

Thanks for your help!!!

Best Regards,

-Automan

[celtic_druid]

What new source?

[sillKotscha]

What new source?

new source... I don't know but what about http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip ?

certainly you already checked that link :)

but concerning FairUse 2.4 (http://www.dvd-guides.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,91/topic,12959.0)...

FairUse 2.4 is out !

Due to a recent hard drive failure the auto-update feature won't be able to upgrade from previous releases. Users who got the last notification mail are welcome to reuse the same download link.

Notification mails will be sent during the next week, so please be patient and don't sent emails about the download link until Feb., 6th.

Users experiencing problems with iPod final muxing are welcome to test and report their findings.
The infamous 12kb bug is fixed, and so is the crash at the beginning of the encoding.

Regards,

ump

[lantern]

That isn't the new (2.4) source code. That hasn't been updated since v2.2.

[lantern]

The new source for FU is finally posted. Here is the link:
http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip

[lantern]

I was fooling around trying to compile the new Fairuse source. I updated the xvid and x264 codecs to 08-Jul-2006 daily build. I applied Celtic_Druid's patches and am currently testing out version 2.5. I didn't put together the installer, I just copied FU.exe and wrote over the previous version (keeping a backup of course). If anyone is daring enough to give my builds a whirl, here are some links:

FU 2.5 executable
http://www.4shared.com/file/2452310/5e52a4fb/fu25.html

Xvid Codec
http://www.4shared.com/file/2415916/d2f11a61/xvid_20060708a.html

x264 Codec
http://www.4shared.com/file/2416899/99e04821/x264_20060708.html

Hopefully, people more skilled in building these programs will provide better (faster and smaller) builds (I only goof around with it, I'm not a programmer at all :eek: ). As I said, I was only fooling around. So, remember, test these out at your own risk!

[laserfan]

I'm a registered owner of FUW, and for anyone like me that finds this thread, there is a FUW 2.5 setup.exe at the other end of the email link you got from ump, when 2.4 was announced.

Very surprised to see a new version, ump has not appeared in the "official Fairuse support forum" for almost 6 months.

p.s. thanks lantern for tipping me off. There's been no notice anywhere (else) that I know of for this new version...

[celtic_druid]

Appears to have a new iPod video mode (still xvid/mp3 in an avi container though??). Old patch won't enable it.

No, looks like it includes PsyTEL(R) MPEG-4 AAC Encoder V2.15. Command line is -if -of -br so if you renamed Nero's encoder I guess it would work. Only difference is mp4 vs. aac and with mp4box doing the muxing, it shouldn't matter. Then again, looks like PsyTEL uses kb where as Nero uses b.

[jjwerrett]

well since use this alot wanted know fi anyone actually had the old divx3 fairuse version wouldnt mind trying it even though it old just to see wat it liek to compare to xvid, as i got say the crosscutting method it did was awsome and why it cant be done with xvid and all is shame as i would mind waiting a whole 30hrs for it to encode if i knew it would come out look very clear and block free (ish).

well maybe you lot can help but i am trying find out if using MP3 or MP3 VBR is better? which do you think is better for MP3 encoding for audio and what bitrate would u recommend as currently all videos i encode are set to 2GB file size. also is it better to use the internal XVID codec or install the lastest version and untick the box to use the lastest version downloaded as cant say i noticed much but maybe someone else has.

It just general tips i like to know as currently i just encode the video size that fairuse marks for me with 192KBit for audio at 2GB file size, also is HD mode worth trying since i set it to 2GB and in expect mode can select HD resolutions.

well hope someone has the old version of fairuse divx3 i could try just as a fun test and mess about, and hope someone can answer how get best encodes out of fairuse using XVID as divx i dont really like seems to heavy and low on FPS and takes donkey years for me on my laptop.

well sorry bout huge msg but got ask take care all and keep this program going it awsome :)

[celtic_druid]

FairUse only offers CBR or ABR. I'd actually recommend pure VBR. For vorbis it uses -b, which according to the oggenc help is the equiv of -q, so it is pure VBR.

For aac I guess it is CBR. I just modified it to use Nero's encoder, which makes it ABR. I might have a go at add quality based encoding for lame and aac. Probably something like -V5 --vbr-new would be good for lame.

I really couldn't recommend SBR encoding over XviD. If you really wanted, then the current version can encode via ffdshow which is capable of DivX 3 encoding.

edit:
http://mirror05.x264.nl/celtic_druid/force.php?file=././fu2.5-setup.exe
If someone wants to test.

[lantern]

I use FU to encode to XVID for playback on a standalone player, so the only option for sound is cbr mp3, or possibly AC3.

[celtic_druid]

VBR mp3 shouldn't be an issue for a SAP.

[lantern]

My Philips DVP642 won't play them.

[laserfan]

My Philips DVP642 won't play them.My Pinnacle ShowCenters MOSTLY work with them, but I found that VBR audio could be a factor in glitchy playback. I will not touch VBR MP3s anymore myself.

[jjwerrett]

well found the CBR best to use for MP3 i cant say i tried the OGM container way with .ogg audio hmmm might give that a go as i got a TVIX box which store my films on at the moment which got 400GB hard drive but i never tried OGM film on it think i will try a sample. but as every film i do is set to 2GB file size would anyone recommend any tweaks or that as noticed got option for codec settings for xvid which i leave alone as boy i get lost on it, as you can see this program perfect for me just cause i dont have change this or this just press and go and sleep and wake up and ahh haa it done.

has anyone actually got the old fairuse though which had divx 3.11 with it i just want try it sounds stupid but it just bit fun end day, i would like the cross cutting put on a test maybe Druid could do it as he seems good programmer but i just want see it may take the extra hrs but at the cost of higher output it means it be the only program to be able give the highest quality using various encodes of high or low motion in scenes which what i liked bout it.

Well hope someone can upload the old version be great and thank you for few who helped bout the audio all left is the video resoutions and if to use the internal or external codecs which for me is the lastest XVID install.

hope this helps other newbies like myself for using this awsome program:D

[foxyshadis]

The best thing you could probably do with xvid at that size is to give it a custom matrix, such as 6of9 or EQM HR. Searching for "matrix" should bring them up.

Instead of ogm, you should try mkv instead (with vorbis or aac audio), and let ogm die peacefully, it's not a terribly useful format.

[jjwerrett]

Right okay first thin i dont know anything bout Matrix or EQM etc!! so need help there as i dont know what to do i know how to load a custom matrix or save it but that it lol. what you mean by mkv as how can i go by doing aac as i was just gona put it to ogg which i though was ogm container. is there alot diffrence in ogm and mkv container. So far this help is awsome so thank you to everyone and really hope this helping anybody like me :)

[celtic_druid]

FU only does aac for the iPod mode, which means mp4 (also SP video). I could modify it to do aac for mkv. Probably dump VDubMod for mkvmerge for mkv output to. Could do the same for ogm; using say OGMuxer. Then I guess use AVI-Mux GUI for avi output and get rid of VDubMod altogether.

Plenty of stuff that could be done with FU. Probably getting rid of VfW encoding would be the first step though. (xvidencraw, x264 cli, etc.).

mkv will give you lower overhead. Can handle vorbis audio, as well as subs and chapters. So basically everything that ogm could do, accept mkv is still being developed.

[jjwerrett]

well druid i dont mind if you want to try do that if you got spare time but i deff up for the ogg audio or acc with the ogm container just i a newbie so dont know anything on the mkv or that. but i wont mind using ogg or acc for the audio format end day i like ogg at 80kbits and think i produces a relativly good sample back. just hope there ways that can be used to improve encoding and give better quality as time to me is nothing and rather have extra few hours knowing my output xvid or divx file will look 5% better than the current version!!

does anyone know yet what diffrence you get if you encode with the internal codec and the external codec?

hope everyone is well

[celtic_druid]

If you had the same version installed externally, then there would be no difference.

[laserfan]

...does anyone know yet what diffrence you get if you encode with the internal codec and the external codec?If you try to use "external Xvid" codec with FUW2.5, your settings will not be used insofar as at least "custom Matrix" and "# of BVOPs". I don't know what other settings might get over-ridden--these are ones I could see were incorrect in my output, via MPEG4Modifier's analysis.

I spent a lot of time trying to find the problem to no avail. But when I revert to FUW 2.1a, and then add 2.2pre3.exe release, everything works. I think the way FUW uses the Registry settings was changed after that, and something broke... :(

[celtic_druid]

Two different things though; external XviD and custom settings. You can use the internal XviD build, but with your own settings or an external build, but with settings based on the quality/speed slider.

[laserfan]

Two different things though; external XviD and custom settings...Not sure why, if I understand your comment right, anyone would even WANT to use an external Xvid build, and not use their custom settings with it as well.

My need is that I like to use the Xvid build from AutoGK, which has MTK/Sigma compatibility features, and a custom matrix. I know from exchanges I've had with ump that he'd been trying to get FUW to work for me, but like I said somewhere along the way the registry setting system and/or FUW's handling of external Xvid "broke" after 2.1a and 2.2pre3.

[loopyloops]

Just received an email re: the FU 2.5 update - is that different than the one I downloaded a week or so ago? Just wondering 'cause the email came in just now. Thanks!!

[jjwerrett]

okay so let me gess this right the program dont work correctly in that the internal xvid codec is no use as it dont update itself through the registry when you change settings, but the external codec which is lately version there is on net does work along with the settings because it works fine with registry settings been sent to the codec? is this correct or not.

Also this custom matrix i would liek to learn more about it as i never messed bout with the codecs options before and would like to have a go but what do i change or can anyone give the matrix as a export as i no i can load or save them it just there loads numbers and to me i probaly change it and it go wrong!!!

well druid will wait for any new builds from you testing diffrent parts but if u need a tester i sure love to help in any way :)

[jjwerrett]

well i am currently doing a test with the 0.30 version of fairuse which was divx3 and currently now with the 2.5 latest version with xvid, i got to say for cross cutting and all the divx3 produced a very good copy of aeon flux. so it will be good to see how the xvid comes out and they are set to the same settings of 988mb and 160k audio bitrate so will let you lot know. but funny part is the divx3 codec and cross cutting took me 4hrs for the lot to be done than 5hrs which the xvid does so not bad for 4 encodes when xvid does a 2 pass!!

well will let you all know how goes as gonna do a compare with eyes and also with screenshots so some of you can see a sample if you like to just show you that maybe cross cutting if druid or that can do it is not a bad thing and why ti was taken out is a shame.

"loopyloops" i did receieve a email bout the FU 2.5 update but this was on the 13th July 2006 so i dont no if was a delay with your email or that but though i see if would help by giving date i received my email bout FU 2.5

[jjwerrett]

well done the encodes and divx3 had more vivid colour than xvid but at the cost of blocks so that out window was fun test though as the divx3 cross cuttings does good job of it on dark area where it actually black not dark grey look, well shame xvid cant have this cross cutting method as wonder how it would actually come out at the end be intresting to see. well since i stick with xvid i need now know bout this custom matrix since i encode all dvds at 192kbit mp3 and set file size to 2gb but would liek to try ogg audio but dont no wat container to put it in.

also still gona wait and see bout this internal and external codec problem that the external one gets the correct settings and the internal doesnt so will wait for an answer there.

but most of all want know bout this matrix stuff as i wana see wat happens if i change it to a custom one like a user said but i dont no what part i mess round with

[~bT~]

For some reason, my ext or int XviD settings are not honoured. Things like custom matrice, b-vops etc. I checked with MpegModifier. Anyone solved this yet?

[celtic_druid]

Looks like a HT profile is being loaded. So most settings get ignored. Disabling bframes will work, but if they are enabled then you get 1 consecutive with packed bitstream enabled. Qpel and GMC get ignored and you always get H.263 quants. So the settings are being loaded, just most overidden by the HT profile.

Shouldn't take to long to find the problem and fix it. Need to change my build anyway since the VfW is broken (GMC gets disabled for unrestricted, although that isn't such a bad thing, since GMC crashes). No time to look now though.

Once again, using an external XviD build, has nothing to do with custom settings. They are seperate things.

[laserfan]

Once again, using an external XviD build, has nothing to do with custom settings. They are seperate things.c_d I don't understand this--what are you defining as "custom settings"?

Like I said above, I like the Xvid build from AutoGK because I use the MTK/Sigma profile embedded with it (OTTOMH I think it's called "NTSC MTK" perhaps) and then I load a custom matrix (not H.263) and change a number of other settings here & there (this is what *I* mean by "custom settings").

All looks well on the surface w/FUW2.5, but when my encoding is complete the result includes (at least) the H.263 quants and 1 BVOPs vs. what I'd expected.

Any clarification you can offer would be appreciated--am I right in understanding too that you are the guru behind the "MTK/Sigma" stuff? I use Pinnacle ShowCenter players with Sigma Designs chipsets...

[celtic_druid]

I am refering to the encoding mode "codec settings" = custom settings and unticking "use internal XviD" = external.

As I said, all that is happening with the H.263 quants, 1 bvop, etc. could be explained if FU was accidentally loading a HomeTheatre profile, since it would force all of that. Doesn't mean that your settings aren't being loaded and it happens for internal and external versions of XviD here.

Yes, I added the MTK profiles. From recollection it wasn't my idea though.

[laserfan]

I am refering to the encoding mode "codec settings" = custom settings and unticking "use internal XviD" = external.
OK, so am I.

As I said, all that is happening with the H.263 quants, 1 bvop, etc. could be explained if FU was accidentally loading a HomeTheatre profile, since it would force all of that.
I'm exposing my ignorance cuz I don't know exactly what Xvid functionality is asserted via a profile selection; but this clarifies your position for me, thanks.

I did go 'round & round with ump on this problem--he said he couldn't duplicate my findings. But I can certainly see that something broke after 2.1a, and numerous others at the FU support site have complained about "external Xvid" issues as well. I appreciate that you've shown an interest in this!

[celtic_druid]

Well I can replicate it.
Basically HT profiles don't allow qpel, GMC or quants other than H.263. Also if bframes are enabled, they are limited to 1 consecutive with pb enabled. I also made sure that N-VOP's don't get used and from recollection, if interlacing is enabled, bframes are disabled.

You can check my theory by disabling bframes. Should result in an encode without bframes. This would not be the case if the settings were simply being ignored.

I should have time tonight to have a proper look and hopefully fix it.

[~bT~]

I should have time tonight to have a proper look and hopefully fix it.
This last line I like:thanks:

[celtic_druid]

Ok, looks like unless you have it set to iPod, a home theatre profile gets loaded.

Should be fixed now. Err wait, still got only 1 bvop. CQM, qpel and packed bitstream are working though. Then again, looks like only 1 bframe because I screwed up the MTK profile. That is now fixed. No bframe limit for MTK profiles now. Perhaps I should set it to 3?

Ok, tests as ok here. Maybe I broke one of the other modes though?

Uploading now, same link as before.

[~bT~]

@celtic_druid
Thanks a lot. Gonna test now n post results.

BTW, how do I use the nero dll with fairuse? Sorry to be a pain.

[celtic_druid]

exe, not dll, unless you meant dl as in download. Just put neroAacEnc.exe (or rename the SSE2 build) in your fairuse dir and it is used for the audio in iPod mode. 2 pass ABR with -lc since ipod's can't properly handle he.

Should also point out that using an external XviD version that doesn't have MTK profiles will probably break quality/speed encoding since I set that to use MTK profiles. ESS uses Home Theatre, iPod is still SP@L3.

[~bT~]

exe, not dll, unless you meant dl as in download.
You're right, I meant to type .exe. Was in a hurry.

Update: Yippeeeeee! its working now.

Packed bitstream: Yes
QPel: No
GMC: No
Interlaced: No
Aspect ratio: Square pixels
Quant type: MPEG Custom

Custom intra matrix:
8 14 14 14 15 15 18 21
14 14 14 14 15 16 19 22
14 14 15 15 17 19 22 25
14 14 15 18 21 23 27 31
15 15 17 21 26 30 35 40
15 16 19 23 30 38 46 56
18 19 22 27 35 46 61 76
21 22 25 31 40 56 76 99

Custom inter matrix:
19 19 19 19 20 21 24 28
19 19 19 19 20 22 26 29
19 19 20 21 23 26 29 34
19 19 21 24 28 31 36 42
20 20 23 28 35 41 48 55
21 22 26 31 41 51 63 76
24 26 29 36 48 63 83 103
28 29 34 42 55 76 103 134

I-VOPs: 49 (0.62%)
P-VOPs: 3470 (44.13%)
B-VOPs: 4345 (55.25%)
S-VOPs: 0 (0.00%)
N-VOPs: 0 (0.00%)

Max consecutive B-VOPs: 2
1 consec: 71.49%
2 consec: 28.51%

BUT. its freezing on the final stage. Not writing the output file. Only tried it once yet, will try again & post back.

Update: Pressed cancel as it wasnt doing anything. Then it outputted the file but went straight to my next project which I hadnt selected to rip.

[jjwerrett]

well i see a custom matrix for me to try in the post above, what will i expect though what will be diffrent. bEnGaLi tHuG - what does ut custom maxtrix do does the quality change or that :)

[~bT~]

well i see a custom matrix for me to try in the post above, what will i expect though what will be diffrent. bEnGaLi tHuG - what does ut custom maxtrix do does the quality change or that :)
:search:

[~bT~]

@celtic_druid
This time round, using your build again, Im getting undersized files now. Used the AC3 audio instead to fill the gap.

Edit: Sorry. My mistake, didnt have 2 pass ticked. Also forgot to say that the output file was written ok this time. Will be using your build from now so any issues I will post here FYI. Thanks for sorting it out.

[laserfan]

@celtic_druid: ...Will be using your build from now...I am anxious to try it myself but will have to wait another day to do so...

[laserfan]

OK, my custom settings "took" with your build celtic_druid! Great! But I too had the problem of the final "Writing to output file" dialog sticking at 0%. Cancelling-out of that caused the file to be written (to my preset output directory).

If you can find that one glitch I think that would be great. Although I haven't tested it I believe/expect that the glitch would likely stop batch jobs dead in their tracks.

Thanks again for your work on this!

[~bT~]

OK, my custom settings "took" with your build celtic_druid! Great! But I too had the problem of the final "Writing to output file" dialog sticking at 0%. Cancelling-out of that caused the file to be written (to my preset output directory).

If you can find that one glitch I think that would be great. Although I haven't tested it I believe/expect that the glitch would likely stop batch jobs dead in their tracks.

Thanks again for your work on this!It just did it on the first encode only for me. Since then, I've done batch jobs too and all is working well. Try it sometime. Just do a chapter here n a chapter there to save time.

[celtic_druid]

It uses VDubMod for muxing. There are several popups that you get when you first run it. I added I think registry keys to disable two of them. If you have say DivX3 installed, then I guess you would get a further popup which could explain it.

So before running FU, I guess try loading up VDubMod, see if you get a GPL welcome, mkv warning, etc.

Solution I guess would be to kill VDubMod and use I guess AVI-Mux GUI instead. Or I could further work on the installer.

Then again the problem could be something completely different.

[~bT~]

Solution I guess would be to kill VDubMod and use I guess AVI-Mux GUI instead. Or I could further work on the installer.

Then again the problem could be something completely different.How do I kill VDubMod? (remove it from the directory?) & if I did kill it, will it cause problems with batch encoding?

[celtic_druid]

Yeah, delete it. It would cause problems with all encoding, batch or otherwise for everthing except for ipod stuff since mp4box is used for muxing that.

[~bT~]

Yeah, delete it. It would cause problems with all encoding, batch or otherwise for everthing except for ipod stuff since mp4box is used for muxing that.
I havent had the same problem again, so Im not doing anything now. But just wanted to know for future ref. Thanks.

[laserfan]

I tried it once again and this time it worked without the "hang at 0% output file being written".

I dunno what might cause this "halts only on 1st attempt", but I also can't state with complete certainty that it never happened to me before (I've installed/uninstalled/reinstalled many versions of ump's FUW over the last couple years).

In any case it seems to be working now, and I will be doing some of my favorite encodings with it (episodic DVD discs to Xvid using MTK NTSC profile) this weekend, so will report back if I see any issues.

Thanks again celtic_druid!j

p.s. As I said above I spent A LOT of time trying to help ump see my problem & fix it, to no avail--can you say here c_d what exactly you fixed!!??? I'd do a "compare" of your source w/ump's, but can't find yours...

[celtic_druid]

There is a patch on my site. Haven't added the latest change though. Basically as I said, home theatre profiles got used, unless you were in iPod mode (case 3).


#ifdef FAIRUSE_PRO
switch(_session->preset) {
case 3:
regXviDProfile = "Simple @ L3";
break;
case 1:
if(_summary->IsPal()) {
regXviDProfile = "Home Theatre PAL";
} else {
regXviDProfile = "Home Theatre NTSC";
}
break;
case 2:
break;
case 0:
if(_summary->IsPal()) {
regXviDProfile = "MTK PAL";
} else {
regXviDProfile = "MTK NTSC";
}
break;
default:
#endif
if(_summary->IsPal()) {
regXviDProfile = "Home Theatre PAL";
} else {
regXviDProfile = "Home Theatre NTSC";
}
#ifdef FAIRUSE_PRO
break;
}
#endif


I added a case for quality/speed and set it to MTK. Set codec settings to nothing, ESS to HT as it should be and left default for no real reason. All that was really needed was "case 2: break;" or if changed default to case 1 (ESS).

Probably the official installer added a VDubMod reg key that I missed. I added SeenMatroskaDeprecated 1.5.10.2 & SeenWelcome. But as I said, if you have DivX3 installed, then I think you would get another popup. I don't have it installed, so it worked here. Can't see why anyone would have DivX3 installed though, although I guess there could be other pop ups or it could be something else. Does seem to fit since it only fails the first time.

I knew straight away that it was loading HT profiles, so it took basically no time to find and fix the problem. If you were looking for something else, then you never would have found it.

[laserfan]

I knew straight away that it was loading HT profiles, so it took basically no time to find and fix the problem...Well, I appreciate that you did it, and your post, thanks.

Re: the pop-ups, I don't have Divx3 installed FWIW. Regardless, the one "hang" should not cause anyone problems, since Okay-ing out of it still resulted in the output file being written.

[~bT~]

This is the log for the 1st time I started FU (your latest build)

23:43:10 3320 FairUse Wizard 2.5 log file
23:43:10 3320 2 processor(s) detected
23:43:10 3320 Directory set to : C:\Program Files\FairUse Wizard 2\
23:44:06 3320 RegCopyKey() : ERROR (will retry)
23:44:06 3320 RegCopyKey() : ERROR (will retry)
23:44:06 3320 RegCopyKey() : ERROR (will retry)
23:44:06 3320 RegCopyKey() : ERROR
23:44:06 3320 DivXCodec::Create() : Succeeded to open internal XviD codec
23:44:28 3320 DivXCodec::Create() : Succeeded to open internal XviD codec

Somethings seems wrong...

[foxyshadis]

Download Regmon (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html) and check out what key it's trying to access (since the log doesn't show it). Make sure you set the include filter to the fairuse executable, or you'll get WAY too many messages.

[~bT~]

Download Regmon (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html) and check out what key it's trying to access (since the log doesn't show it). Make sure you set the include filter to the fairuse executable, or you'll get WAY too many messages.
Thanks for that tip. Yeah, it was trying to access some ffVFW codec key. I dont have it installed so it wont find it. Now let me try n encode sumfin n see if all is working...

Feedback: Installed the latest celtic_druid build. Everything is working well inc batch encoding. No freezing on outputting 1st encode anymore. Gr8 work celtic_druid!!!

[rack04]

Can someone please explain to me what is the difference in using external and internal codecs? I use fairuse to convert my DVD movies to xvid avi for use on my WM5 PocketPC with TCPMP. Thanks.

[celtic_druid]

Didn't we already cover this? You use the internal version and you get whatever build is bundled. You use external and you get whatever is installed on your system. Could be that they are the exact same builds, in which case, no difference.

[rack04]

Can anyone tell me why I can't get the "Auto set" to crop correctly? How does everyone else perform this function? See example below:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a199/rack04/untitled-3.jpg

[celtic_druid]

Looks fine to me. Try pressing 16:9 if you want it to just crop the black.

[jjwerrett]

druid can you give a post with you link to your build so i can try ur build using the lastest external codec and using the post which showed someones custom matrix to have a go with

thanks

[~bT~]

druid can you give a post with you link to your build so i can try ur build using the lastest external codec and using the post which showed someones custom matrix to have a go with

thanksceltic_druid's latest build (http://mirror05.x264.nl/celtic_druid/force.php?file=./fu2.5-setup.exe)

Link to Sharx matrices (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=83125)
The above link will also give details about the custom matrices too.

[weaver4]

I am a paid customer of FUW but I never got an update email. Who do I send email to?

[laserfan]

If you use the link from the last email you received, it will give the new version.

[CLS]

@UMP:
Very encouraging announcement, let's wait and see. Once it works, I am probably about to write an article (maybe even some kind of guide) about the differences in rips targeting TV sets and PC screens.

regards,
halbacht

I', just searching for a guide to FU. Is there any guide available somewhere? *I would highly appreciate it! :)*

Thanks...

[~bT~]

I', just searching for a guide to FU. Is there any guide available somewhere? *I would highly appreciate it! :)*

Thanks...
FairUse Guide (http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/34/59/)

[rack04]

I just tried to encode a 4.32 GB ISO using external XVID codec, highest quality setting, AC3 audio, with 750mb target size, except the output size ended up being 400mb. Is there something I'm not doing right because of the large undersize?

[celtic_druid]

As I said, there could be complications using an external XviD build due to profiles. Older builds use "DXN HT" instead of "Home Theatre", which would break the official build. It would break the ESS mode with my build and the lack of MTK profiles would break the quality/speed mode. Basically you would end up with SP@L3 video.

[rack04]

As I said, there could be complications using an external XviD build due to profiles. Older builds use "DXN HT" instead of "Home Theatre", which would break the official build. It would break the ESS mode with my build and the lack of MTK profiles would break the quality/speed mode. Basically you would end up with SP@L3 video.

I will try the internal XVID codec and report back. Thanks for your help.

[jjwerrett]

well been trying fairuse for ages and got to say the custom matrix i saved from one the forums on this site does seem work a little not that much but hey all is better than nothing, on the whole though i still would like a 2GB file to be better quality but apparently to a older version of fairuse divx 3 version. that a to high a file size leads to waste in video quality!!! is this true as i stick to 2GB on all my vids and the odd short film does look worse than a 2hr film encoded :(

i wish druid could do a build with the lastest xvid build or that which is built into fairuse so it dont break the profiles and settings when using the external codec. Has anyone tried the HD resolutions on DVD's and if have what they think of the resizer to a large image?

I have stuck to 192k mp3 audio as i cant get use to this container and dont no how u do chapters in the video if someone could link to a guide to do them be great like my mate can do on his apple pc using 3ivx codec on his for quicktime

[celtic_druid]

I don't think the XviD CVS has been updated since my last FU package so it does contain the latest XviD.

[jjwerrett]

Druid can you put the link to your lastest build again please as i have done a fresh reinstall on Laptop and not installed any external xvid codec so gona use your fresh build on it to try out so everything be at its default.

can you upload a custom matrix that will work well for encoded of 2GB in size as any film i do of any length will be set to 192K audio and 2GB filesize overall.

Unless you recommend just using the default xvid you have implemented in your fairuse build with no custom matrix :)

will wait on your reply

[spectra]

Druid can you put the link to your lastest build again
try to read 10 posts up. there are the links. :rolleyes:

[Yo]

Can someone please explain to me what is the difference in using external and internal codecs? I use fairuse to convert my DVD movies to xvid avi for use on my WM5 PocketPC with TCPMP. Thanks.

Hello Rack

What settings do you use to get decent quality with low file size PPC videos (320x240) using FairUse Wizard?

Does the celtic_druid version work better than the official one for that purpose?

I've usually used AutoGK (XVID) for that purpose, setting the quality setting to between 20-30, setting the resolution width to 320, and often reducing the audio quality below the default 128kbps, sometimes encoding mono audio.

When I tried FU before, I didn't have as good results, but I don't know if I found good settings for it. So, I wonder how you usually set it for PPC videos, and whether you have got decent results (with small file size) that way.

One suggestion for the developers--it would be nice if FU could open a DVD directory on the HD, not only open a disc or an .iso file. For instance, one might have already ripped a disc to make a copy of it, but also want to make an .avi file for PPC. In doing the latter, it would be quicker to open the already-ripped DVD folder on the HD, rather than having FU rip and decrypt the disk again, wasting time re-doing what's already been done. Any possibility that could be added?

[Yo]

What kind of settings does the Ipod profile use?

[stevodude]

One suggestion for the developers--it would be nice if FU could open a DVD directory on the HD, not only open a disc or an .iso file. For instance, one might have already ripped a disc to make a copy of it, but also want to make an .avi file for PPC. In doing the latter, it would be quicker to open the already-ripped DVD folder on the HD, rather than having FU rip and decrypt the disk again, wasting time re-doing what's already been done. Any possibility that could be added?

you can mount a video_ts folder as a 'virtual DVD' using several freeware apps from the net, then you FU to access that 'virtual drive'

I've done that in the past, but not sure what app I used as I nuked my PC recently.

maybe something like mountvd (http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/MountVD.shtml), will work?... It's freeware, probably other freeware apps that'd do that.

[~bT~]

It doesnt take very long to make an iso file with DVD Shrink from the video_ts folder on the HD. 3 to 5 mins max for me.

[evil ryu]

Yesterday, when I tried to encode a movie, FairUse gave me an error: xvid.dll not found and then crashed.

I'm watching another XviD when I launched this encode. Is this the matter? :confused:

I'm using the embedded XviD encoder.


Thanks.

Bye.

[celtic_druid]

xvid.dll is devapi3. The embeded version doesn't have an xvid.dll, just xvidcore and xvidvfw.

Only time FU should give that error is if you have it set to external and you don't have XviD installed. First it checks for xvidvfw, then if it doesn't find that it checks for xvid.dll. Definatly shouldn't happen when set to use the internal build.

[evil ryu]

I hope there will be a new build of FairUse with updated xvid embedded and mp3 lame updated to 3.97 version.

The XviD cvs of july crash on my Intel Core 2 Duo. :(

Now I'm forced to use DivX that works without glitches.

[celtic_druid]

You can use an external build of XviD. Could probably replace the internal one with a resource hacker to and lame is as simple as copying over a new exe.

[Pinch]

Okay, I've been reading most of this thread, and now it's just beginning to be too much!

I have a few simple questions (at least I think so)... In the 2.1 release it was easy to figure out when external codec was on or not, but I can't find the option in the 2.5 release, well, it's not obvious imo :p

I'm guessing it's somewhere around the initial drop down-menu:
Encoding Speed
Encoding Speed (ESS)
Codec Settings
iPod Video

To me these options just seem pretty random!
I chose "Codec Settings" and pressing next, yes, I was able to change the settings (but I have no idea if I'm using the external or internal codec). So should I assume that if I chose Encoding Speed with or without ESS (whatever that is), I will only be able to change the codec settings from within FUW (i.e. I won't be able to press "Codec Settings")?
Apart from that, I was still able to set the end result size to whatever I wanted in FWU, but I was also able to set the size/bitrate in the codec settings - so which of these settings is FWU actually encoding from? :s
On top of that, before FWU even got to analyze the disc (hadn't even specified what DVD to encode from) 7 zones were defined in the codec settings... Why?

I'm so confused!

[celtic_druid]

You have to tick use expert mode to deselect internal Xvid.
In my build ESS uses a HT profile and regular encoding speed uses MTK.

You think too much. I would suggest thinking less and you will be less confused.

[malpijerk]

okay guys I am having problem opening Fairuse WIzard 2.5. I recently formatted my harddrive and ever since that I am having this problem. I don't know what is causing this problem. As soon as I hit next (the option in FU wizard: 2nd step) I receive an error saying "Fu.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." How shall I proceed now? I need you all's great help.

[Pinch]

You have to tick use expert mode to deselect internal Xvid.
In my build ESS uses a HT profile and regular encoding speed uses MTK.

You think too much. I would suggest thinking less and you will be less confused.

Okay, then, but I still don't understand why I'm able to set the bitrate (size) from within FUW and in the XviD Codec Setting. Which one of those is FUW actually listening to?
Another werid thing is, when using the internal codec, aboslutely nothing happens when I press "Codec Settings" (it's not blanked out, and I have chosen "Codec Settings" in the drop down-menu).

Oh, and on top of that there's something specific to the DVD I don't understand: on the back of the DVD cover, it says the video is NTSC, but ChapterXtractor says it's PAL. And as far as I understand PAL content can't be interlaced, but I'm fairly sure it actually is... So is this PAL or NTSC?

[audioman]

Hi forumers

Can someone post a guide on How to use Celtic druid built and the settings to use to encode a movie ?
Do I have to select a special matrix ?

Thanks to give me explanations

[lantern]

A new version of Fairuse Wizard has been posted:

2.6
Fixed:
- much better handling of some new discs
- fixed the end-of-movie-is-missing bug occuring with homemade discs
- fixed the iPod encoding final muxing error

Added:
- Windows Vista compatibility under standard user account
- new cell commands interpreter for enhanced playback flow handling

Changed:
- updated the internal XviD codec
- updated the internal x264 codec
- better handling of DivX codec

Sourcecode available from FairuseWizard (http://www.fairusewizard.com)website here (http://www.fairusewizard.com/Release/fu-src.zip).

[celtic_druid]

http://mirror.brokenlogic.net/fu2.6-setup.exe
Needs testing.

[lantern]

Thanks CD, I hosed my install of VC++ 2005EE and am having trouble getting it reinstalled. I appreciate it!

[LoRd_MuldeR]

http://mirror.brokenlogic.net/fu2.6-setup.exe
Needs testing.

The EXE crahes immediately:

Microsoft (R) Windows Debugger Version 6.6.0007.5
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

CommandLine: "D:\FairUse Wizard 2\FU.exe"
Symbol search path is: *** Invalid ***
****************************************************************************
* Symbol loading may be unreliable without a symbol search path. *
* Use .symfix to have the debugger choose a symbol path. *
* After setting your symbol path, use .reload to refresh symbol locations. *
****************************************************************************
Executable search path is:
ModLoad: 00400000 00728000 image00400000
ModLoad: 7c910000 7c9c7000 ntdll.dll
ModLoad: 7c800000 7c906000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll
ModLoad: 5d450000 5d4e7000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\COMCTL32.dll
ModLoad: 77da0000 77e4a000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\ADVAPI32.dll
ModLoad: 77e50000 77ee1000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\RPCRT4.dll
ModLoad: 77ef0000 77f36000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\GDI32.dll
ModLoad: 77d10000 77da0000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
ModLoad: 77f40000 77fd7000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHLWAPI.dll
ModLoad: 77be0000 77c38000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\msvcrt.dll
ModLoad: 75ec0000 75ee1000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSVFW32.dll
ModLoad: 76af0000 76b1e000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\WINMM.dll
ModLoad: 7c9d0000 7e798000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll
ModLoad: 76350000 7639a000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\COMDLG32.dll
ModLoad: 774b0000 775ec000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\ole32.dll
ModLoad: 770f0000 7717c000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\OLEAUT32.dll
(13cc.1224): Break instruction exception - code 80000003 (first chance)
eax=00351eb4 ebx=7ffdd000 ecx=00000001 edx=00000002 esi=00351f48 edi=00351eb4
eip=7c911230 esp=0022fb20 ebp=0022fc94 iopl=0 nv up ei pl nz na po nc
cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00000202
*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for ntdll.dll -
ntdll!DbgBreakPoint:
7c911230 cc int 3
0:000> g
ModLoad: 773a0000 774a2000 C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\x86_Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.2600.2180_x-ww_a84f1ff9\comctl32.dll
(13cc.1224): Access violation - code c0000005 (first chance)
First chance exceptions are reported before any exception handling.
This exception may be expected and handled.
eax=00000000 ebx=00000001 ecx=0000000a edx=004dd804 esi=00000002 edi=00000a28
eip=0045fd5e esp=001b8f9c ebp=001b8fe8 iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na pe nc
cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00010246
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for image00400000
image00400000+0x5fd5e:
0045fd5e f30f7e05acd84a00 movq xmm0,mmword ptr [image00400000+0xad8ac (004ad8ac)] ds:0023:004ad8ac=566e776f6e6b6e55
0:000> g
(13cc.1224): Access violation - code c0000005 (!!! second chance !!!)
eax=00000000 ebx=00000001 ecx=0000000a edx=004dd804 esi=00000002 edi=00000a28
eip=0045fd5e esp=001b8f9c ebp=001b8fe8 iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na pe nc
cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00000246
image00400000+0x5fd5e:
0045fd5e f30f7e05acd84a00 movq xmm0,mmword ptr [image00400000+0xad8ac (004ad8ac)] ds:0023:004ad8ac=566e776f6e6b6e55

[celtic_druid]

No crash here. Never let it finish encoding though.

[tony62]

Looks like 2.6 has been removed from Fairuse website and not even mentioned in the history anymore: http://www.fairusewizard.com/lang_en/fairuse_wizard_dvd_divx_xvid_backup_tool_news.html

[lantern]

Did not crash for me.

[weaver4]

I bought version 2.4. When version 2.5 came out I got email from Fairuse with a link for "donator download". I have not received a email regarding version 2.6. Will I? Where do I get the full version?

[tony62]

Did not crash for me either. I have encoded The Bourne Supremacy successfully, although the size was almost 100MB less than the 700MB target.

[celtic_druid]

Well I tested Alien here and it came out at 1397MB from a target of 1400MB's. Used encoding speed mode.

iPod mode is broken. Fails with muxing. Needs updating anyway.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

It crashes here on my AMD AthlonXP system right after I run the EXE file. Maybe SSE2 is required for this build?
(My system is stable, I encode 10 hours non-stop with x264 and nothing goes wrong ^^)

[celtic_druid]

Yep, just checked and the project file is set to SSE2. Doubt it would make any difference speed wise and I don't remember setting it (must have downloaded that way).

Will change and do a new build later.

[jawgee]

Was a newer 2.6 build ever released? Just curious...

Thanks!
jawgee

[celtic_druid]

The build linked earlier (I did post a link right?) was updated (some weeks ago) to support non SSE2 CPU's and with working mp4 output. Other than that I haven't done anything. Been otherwise busy and uninterested.

Any feedback on Vista support, undersizing, oversizing, etc. with my build is still welcome though.

[labtroll]

Any feedback on Vista support, undersizing, oversizing, etc. with my build is still welcome though.

Hey, my first post, so before anything, I'd like to thank Celtic_druid for making this build of FUW2.5. :thanks: The one from the FUW site was giving me codec errors in vista that I couldn't fix. (haven't tried 2.6 yet) Your build worked "right out of the box".

To start off, here are my finds in Vista Ultimate (without lots of tweaking) with FUW2.5 (yes... i know i'm kinda late in the game.. I'll be testing out 2.6 soon.. but 2.5 is stable and get's the job done now for me)


Install fine, but have to run as admin (going to program folder, not just the shortcut and right-click run as admin)

For XviD: I had to install the xvid codec (i used the one from your site) in order to not get a codec error for xvid.

For x.264: I had to drop the contents of the rar file (the x264 codec from you site) into the FUW program folder to also not get codec err for x.264 (not sure if that's suppose to be done that way.. but it worked for me :p )


I have found no problem with size. As it always comes out perfect. (after dozens of retries to get that "perfect" setting)
Settings I've used.

action and non action movies.
700MB or 1400MB
~1000Kb/s and under 700MB (for short videos)
XviD (both speed settings) and H.264
I don't use the quantizer
encoding quality from med-high
dual pass (of course hehe)
over 24hours in a row with 3-4 dvd enqueued up


ISSUES:
MKV: when i choose that option and choose external subs, the subs are not put into MKV container automatically... is that right?

One weird issue. Using folder2iso to make working dvd's from VIDEO_TS folders. But I get the follow errors with FUW:
unable to read anchor point, unable to read dvd data (using an iso made from folder2iso or even re-ripping using dvd decrypter from burned dvd:)

unable to read partition descriptor, invalid lba (using a burned DVD5or9 made from folder2iso)


Not a big deal... I'll have to find a better dvd builder from folders. (actually, I also tried nero 7.x with same results) :o

that wraps it up for now. It would be cool if FUW could be modded to do folders directly (ya.. i know.. it's been said b4). :D

^peeeace^

[celtic_druid]

The internal encoders are embedded resources that are unpacked and used. I guess there is a problem with this and Vista (at least with 2.5). Manually placing the files in the FU dir would allow it to find them where it expects them after it fails to unpack.

[labtroll]

The internal encoders are embedded resources that are unpacked and used. I guess there is a problem with this and Vista (at least with 2.5). Manually placing the files in the FU dir would allow it to find them where it expects them after it fails to unpack.

Ok, thanks. At least I know it wasn't just "random luck" since I reproduced the results a bunch of times.

For the folder2iso problem... solved with dvdshrink. :)

[labtroll]

Version 2.6 build test update.

Build location: http://mirror.brokenlogic.net/fu2.6-setup.exe
OS: Vista Ult.
HW: P4 3.0 (northwood)


-Did over 3 continuous days of coding of 8 films queued up @ various bitrates and size but highest quality setting on x264 codec not a hiccup.
-Needs external x.264 codec (recommended anyway to use the latest) Used vfw x264, latest (r654 by Deaththesheep United) (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=98247)
-more accurate file size. for example: movie i asked for 1400mb came out 1450mb. This build, size came out 1399mb.


NOTE:
-r654 has good visual improvement over the build included in FUW2.5 (film quality better while at almost 5-10% less bitrate)
-That x264 (r654) codec build works with FUW2.5 (celtic_druid)Build, in case you want to stick with the ver.2.5


loookin good :cool:

[Cucamonga]

I have a problem here. FU 2.6 is writing the output file very slowly. It writes a few KB (yes! Kilobytes) per minute! Writting the entire file will take hours! :eek:

Please, anyone knows what is going on? I use KL Mega Codec Pack 2.01 and Windows Vista Home Premium.

Thanks, folks!

[celtic_druid]

Are we talking ripping the DVD or encoding?

[Cucamonga]

I am talking about converting process. FU rips DVD correctly, I select On2 VP7 (video) and OGG Vorbis (audio) tracks (english and portuguese) and it take hours in the convertion process. At the final, it start the writing output file routine but the process is veeeery slow. Version 2.5 works fine but 2.6 don't. I can't reinstall version 2.5 because I changed my OS to Windows Vista and version 2.5 is incompatible with it.

Any ideas, please?

[celtic_druid]

Right, so we are talking muxing here? For ogm output (same goes for mkv) FU uses VirtualDubMod. Perhaps it has some issues with Vista? Although it is also used for other outputs than mp4. I was meaning to change it over to use a cli ogm muxer, mkvtoolnix and AVI-Mux GUI, but I never got around to it.

[Cucamonga]

Well, last night I installed WinXP again (in a partition test) and FU2.6. I selected 3 series episodes for convertion: first conversion was ok but in the second I had same problem: when I come back from my job I found FU trying to write the second output file. It was running the writing routine by 8 hours! The output file was in 60% or so... I cancelled the process and it started to convert the third movie. I cancelled it too... :(

I really don't know why it happens. I give up to post messages on the "oficial forum" of FU because I'm not lucky enough to get my questions answered. Only a few lucky users get that support. Thank you very much for trying to help me.

[labtroll]

I ran into some audio problem with a DVD. on FUW2.6.

~30 min into film the audio is gone. I encoded twice with no fix. Encoded audio just using mp3 128kps. It was the only DVD of the batches with any issue.

BUT... it worked fine encoding with FUW 2.5.

Also, the latest x264 (r654) does work with FUW2.5... my bad... not sure why it didn't work the first few times I tried :confused:.
(I edited and updated my prev post)


@Cucamonga.... though u use On2 VP7 (video) and OGG Vorbis (audio), xvid/x264 with ac3/mp3 works fine in both 2.5 and 2.6 in xp AND vista. read my prev. post.

Besides personal pref.. do you find the vp7 video codec better?

[Wolfman]

For me 2.6 (celtic_droid) works fine .. goes really fast with divx 6.6 and a core2 duo (2 hours max). Very pleased with the speed and quality.
However I know of one problem on foreign films(all films really) if you select extract subtitles but don't have include subpictures also ticked then you will not get any subtitle files. I am trying to teach myself foreign language, but also prefer to have a subtitle file so that the dvd player can sort out the subtitles. This also saves a lot of bitrate in the film itself.
Or I might just be very confused about subtitles? I was expecting to have an avi file and one or two subtitle files (idx or sub or srt?). This is what autogk gives me? or is there alternative software to rip the subtitles?

[laserfan]

Build location: http://mirror.brokenlogic.net/fu2.6-setup.exe....loookin goodI dunno why FUW is acting so bizarre but I thought I'd post here in case others are having trouble.

I've used FUW for years and with (I think) 2.0 started to have problems where it failed to work with my External Xvid settings. I use celtic_druid's build w/MTK profiles.

Went back/forth w/ump over problems, then celtic_druid's build fixed them, or so I thought. Recently I tried 2.6, but this build was not completing the final re-mux of video & audio. Installed FUW (ump build) over the top and it seemed to work.

Then recently I noticed 2.6 was not respecting my external Xvid again!!??!! Finally I DL'ed the build above and this seems to work perfectly--is this the celtic_druid build?

All I wanted to say is I think there may be some issues with how FUW works with both external Xvid and with VirtualDubMod. I have multiple versions, in different locations (its own Program Files folder, with AutoGK, with FUW, a couple others etc.) and finally the above build, which bundles 1.5.10.2 works fine for me again. :o

[celtic_druid]

brokenlogic = me.

[laserfan]

brokenlogic = me.Thanks for confirming, and Thanks for your FUW build! I had paid ump for FUW years ago, but I suspect he's developed a really bad case of the "shareware blues"... :(

[lantern]

Version 2.8 is posted for FU. I don't know if the source has been updated though.

[laserfan]

And note btw that v2.8 is now "free, for a limited time". Apparently it includes some search engine that ump's been paid to include (tho you can choose not to install).

FUW remains for me the easiest tool for re-encoding episodic DVDs...

[glorfbagle]

I see Fairuse 2.9 is out now, i'll give it a try.

[kingofking]

Hi to all
am new to FairUse Wizard
what is the different of Twopass-1st pass and Twopass-2nd pass ?
i have try both setting,but i cant see differents (Quality)